Well, I got a nice little Christmas present, a pair of Motorola T4500 FRS
(or so I thought) radios. Seems that these broadcast on both the FRS (Family
Radio Service) channels and the newer GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service)
frequencies.

When FRS came out, they were nice little radios that didn't require a
license, and had a good range, relatively inexpensive, etc. Of course,
somebody couldn't leave good enough, so they came out with the GMRS
frequencies. The radios use a higher power on the GMRS frequencies.

Well guess what? To be strictly legal, you have to get a license for these
new GMRS frequencies. $75 for 5 years from the FCC, you have to fill out
forms 605 and 159. Now, I can of course operate these radios on channels
8-14 ONLY without a license and be legal, because these are the old FRS
frequencies. Sheesh, the license is more than the radios!

Now how many folks who got these for Christmas do you think are going to
apply for an FCC license? Sure reminds me of the old CB radio days. Just
another taxation scheme.

I got some and am going through the same headache. To make matters worse I
heard someone made a mistake on his form so the FCC did not grant him a
license. They did however cash his $75 check. I am not sure how it ended.

"Keith" wrote in message
...
Well, I got a nice little Christmas present, a pair of Motorola T4500 FRS
(or so I thought) radios. Seems that these broadcast on both the FRS
(Family
Radio Service) channels and the newer GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service)
frequencies.

When FRS came out, they were nice little radios that didn't require a
license, and had a good range, relatively inexpensive, etc. Of course,
somebody couldn't leave good enough, so they came out with the GMRS
frequencies. The radios use a higher power on the GMRS frequencies.

Well guess what? To be strictly legal, you have to get a license for these
new GMRS frequencies. $75 for 5 years from the FCC, you have to fill out
forms 605 and 159. Now, I can of course operate these radios on channels
8-14 ONLY without a license and be legal, because these are the old FRS
frequencies. Sheesh, the license is more than the radios!

Now how many folks who got these for Christmas do you think are going to
apply for an FCC license? Sure reminds me of the old CB radio days. Just
another taxation scheme.

In the early 70's the CB band also required a license. When the "CB boom"
hit in the mid 70's, the FCC found it didn't have the resources to handle
the huge influx of applications, or the the resources to enforce people
operating without a liscense. So to save face - they threw the service
open to free usage.

To date, I've never heard of a case of FCC enforcement on CB that didn't
involve numerous complaints about the same operator coupled with the FCC
being spoon fed the location of the offender. These complaints always
involved very excessive power, or extremely profane operation. Unliscensed
operation was way too petty to squander resources on.

-W


"Keith" wrote in message

Now how many folks who got these for Christmas do you think are going to
apply for an FCC license? Sure reminds me of the old CB radio days. Just
another taxation scheme.

In the early 70's the CB band also required a license. When the "CB boom"
hit in the mid 70's, the FCC found it didn't have the resources to handle
the huge influx of applications, or the the resources to enforce people
operating without a liscense. So to save face - they threw the service
open to free usage.

To date, I've never heard of a case of FCC enforcement on CB that didn't
involve numerous complaints about the same operator coupled with the FCC
being spoon fed the location of the offender. These complaints always
involved very excessive power, or extremely profane operation. Unliscensed
operation was way too petty to squander resources on.

-W


"Keith" wrote in message

Now how many folks who got these for Christmas do you think are going to
apply for an FCC license? Sure reminds me of the old CB radio days. Just
another taxation scheme.

In article ,
"Keith" wrote:

Well, I got a nice little Christmas present, a pair of Motorola T4500 FRS
(or so I thought) radios. Seems that these broadcast on both the FRS (Family
Radio Service) channels and the newer GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service)
frequencies.

When FRS came out, they were nice little radios that didn't require a
license, and had a good range, relatively inexpensive, etc. Of course,
somebody couldn't leave good enough, so they came out with the GMRS
frequencies. The radios use a higher power on the GMRS frequencies.

Well guess what? To be strictly legal, you have to get a license for these
new GMRS frequencies. $75 for 5 years from the FCC, you have to fill out
forms 605 and 159. Now, I can of course operate these radios on channels
8-14 ONLY without a license and be legal, because these are the old FRS
frequencies. Sheesh, the license is more than the radios!

Now how many folks who got these for Christmas do you think are going to
apply for an FCC license? Sure reminds me of the old CB radio days. Just
another taxation scheme.



If you actually knew what you were talking about you would be DANGEROUS.
GMRS predates FRS by only about 30 years. FRS is an unlisensed Service
because the power of the radio's is small. GMRS Radios have more power
and therefor are capable of interfering with other radio systems that
SHARE the same frequencies. This is why they are LICENSED, so that if
you interfere with someone else's LICENSED system, they can identify you
and get you to STOP. If you aren't capable of filling out the LICENSE
FORM or can't AFFORD the fee, then you need to stay on FRS or CB where
Mooron's belong.

me

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 19:21:40 GMT, Me wrote:


If you actually knew what you were talking about you would be DANGEROUS.
GMRS predates FRS by only about 30 years. FRS is an unlisensed Service
because the power of the radio's is small. GMRS Radios have more power
and therefor are capable of interfering with other radio systems that
SHARE the same frequencies. This is why they are LICENSED, so that if
you interfere with someone else's LICENSED system, they can identify you
and get you to STOP. If you aren't capable of filling out the LICENSE
FORM or can't AFFORD the fee, then you need to stay on FRS or CB where
Mooron's belong.

me

Back behind the scenes at all this 2-way-radio nonsense, there's
someone who's been pulling the FCC's string for decades. It's

M-O-T-O-R-O_)$(&@#_)(%&_)(#$*_)@(#&^%_)NO CARRIER


Larry W4CSC

NNNN

Actuallly it was Radio Shack on this one......


In article , Larry W4CSC
wrote:

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 19:21:40 GMT, Me wrote:


If you actually knew what you were talking about you would be DANGEROUS.
GMRS predates FRS by only about 30 years. FRS is an unlisensed Service
because the power of the radio's is small. GMRS Radios have more power
and therefor are capable of interfering with other radio systems that
SHARE the same frequencies. This is why they are LICENSED, so that if
you interfere with someone else's LICENSED system, they can identify you
and get you to STOP. If you aren't capable of filling out the LICENSE
FORM or can't AFFORD the fee, then you need to stay on FRS or CB where
Mooron's belong.

me

Back behind the scenes at all this 2-way-radio nonsense, there's
someone who's been pulling the FCC's string for decades. It's

M-O-T-O-R-O_)$(&@#_)(%&_)(#$*_)@(#&^%_)NO CARRIER


Larry W4CSC

NNNN

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 22:09:12 GMT, Rich Hampel
wrote:

Actuallly it was Radio Shack on this one......


No, Moto is the reason it has a 1/2w transmitter and the private
license fees are so rediculously high for other services. Motorola
wants everyone that needs a walkie talkie to buy TRUNKED RADIO SERVICE
from, who else, THEM!

A friend of mine applied to the private licensing contractor the FCC
uses to get a 150 Mhz band system license to put up a nice repeater
with a couple of base stations and a bunch of mobiles. He's in the
paging business and has been for 30+ years. They actually tried to
pull a fast one and told him there were no licenses available....until
he filed suit in court. Suddenly, all those dead 150 Mhz frequencies
we had been monitoring for 6 months WERE, in fact, available for
license. One of Moto's strings must have broken. One of the nice
walkies is sitting on my desk. I heard him calling his wife, earlier.
We even have a telephone interconnect I can use if my cellphone
coverage sucks. The repeater runs high power from 800' up a tower and
my 7 watt walkie works 70 miles inland.

My point was Motorola doesn't WANT you to have private, untaxed
communications over a mile or so.....see?

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 15:18:11 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 22:09:12 GMT, Rich Hampel
wrote:

Actuallly it was Radio Shack on this one......


No, Moto is the reason it has a 1/2w transmitter and the private
license fees are so rediculously high for other services. Motorola
wants everyone that needs a walkie talkie to buy TRUNKED RADIO SERVICE
from, who else, THEM!

A friend of mine applied to the private licensing contractor the FCC
uses to get a 150 Mhz band system license to put up a nice repeater
with a couple of base stations and a bunch of mobiles. He's in the
paging business and has been for 30+ years. They actually tried to
pull a fast one and told him there were no licenses available....until
he filed suit in court. Suddenly, all those dead 150 Mhz frequencies
we had been monitoring for 6 months WERE, in fact, available for
license. One of Moto's strings must have broken. One of the nice
walkies is sitting on my desk. I heard him calling his wife, earlier.
We even have a telephone interconnect I can use if my cellphone
coverage sucks. The repeater runs high power from 800' up a tower and
my 7 watt walkie works 70 miles inland.

My point was Motorola doesn't WANT you to have private, untaxed
communications over a mile or so.....see?



There were other companies selling those cheap radios long before
motorola got in that end of the business. Remember Ritron, Maxon etc.

Motorola sold more "private" repeater systems than anyone else. They
sold many thousands of them.

At one time there were no private vhf repeater frequencies available
except for low power short range stuff. Only public safety and
industrial.

Regards
Gary

I get your message! nothing like a captive market/audience.

'nother question: since these GMRS radios are so close in frequency to
the UHF business bands, can they be 'tweaked' to these frequencies ---
a la 464 mHz????