On Fri, 22 May 2009, Christopher Hodgdon wrote: > Ok, I have a question that has been bothering me over the last few > days. I had mentioned that we wanted to use our repeater to send out > a set of tones to activate fire style pager (this was some time ago) > and people said we should not do it for one reason or another. One of > those reasons was that it might be considered a one way broadcast and > not legal under FCC rules for amateur radio. > > That being said, I know that some people have come on here and asked > about using a weather radio on their repeater system, etc. Having it > setup to send out alerts over the repeater when they come in. Would > this not also be considered a 1 way broadcast for reception by general > public, per-say. Re-repeating NOAA's broadcast and/or tones, and generating your own alert tones is dodgy at best. If you did so, it would be a one-way transmission since there is no reason to respond, no incentive to pop up on the local repeater. However, if you transmitted a CAPCODE or a two-tone alert tone for "Net Requested" then, that meets the definition:
(2) Brief transmissions necessary to establishing two-way communications with other stations; I believe that if even one ham responded, you'd meet the requirement. (2) is satisfied (reach with me here) by the actions of a fire department dispatcher. There are very few occasions in fire departments where a page tone is not followed by radio traffic -- especially in rural volunteer departments. > How can you legally include a weather alert radio in a repeater setup > and have it function as required? Why not just have a two-tone pager set to the same frequency and activation tone as the weather alerts? If all available tone slots a set matched to the incoming tone, you'll be able to hear the weather alerts, or unmute the reciever. Then you don't have to mess with FCC compliance, or modification of the repeater. Then you can enjoy the 1+kW EIRP of NOAA's transmitters. Another poster commented: > Tones for the activation of pagers are Telecommand and information > bulletins. I strongly disagree with this. Telecommand involves the remote operation of equipment, i.e.: repeaters and spacecraft. Telecommand does not cover remotely managing people. Remember, the intent of the amateur service is not to do those things which commercial radio does for profit. We can't build phone networks over radio and sell bandwidth or airtime to cover our costs. We can't operate for-profit or non-profit paging transmitters in the amateur bands. We can only serve our own needs. We have a great deal of technology available to us now for various forms of amateur experimentation and exploitation. We must keep in mind however that our purpose is to communicate. The FCC has limited us in the manner of what types of things we may share, when, and how we are allowed to communicate. Fundamentally, we're about communicating, not emergency service. There's other sections of radio for that: Part 90. -- Kris Kirby, KE4AHR Disinformation Analyst >From the rules at ARRL.org: (b) In addition to one-way transmissions specifically authorized elsewhere in this Part, an amateur station may transmit the following types of one-way communications: (1) Brief transmissions necessary to make adjustments to the station; (2) Brief transmissions necessary to establishing two-way communications with other stations; (3) Telecommand; (4) Transmissions necessary to providing emergency communications; (5) Transmissions necessary to assisting persons learning, or improving proficiency in, the international Morse code; (6) Transmissions necessary to disseminate information bulletins; (7) Transmissions of telemetry. ...........................................................................
