On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 12:43:01PM -0600, Steve Schneider wrote: | Speaking of jamming them and Ham bands, how many of the users of | the Pic's are using them illegally. The one that I have requires a | ham licence to use. I know the newer ones use the FRC channels, | but I can't leagelly use mine
That may not be true. As long as the power and duty cycle are low enough, you can transmit on almost any frequency, including the ham bands, without a license. (There are some frequencies where the power limits are even lower (perhaps even zero, but that seems unworkable) such as on 121.5 MHz, but these are generally the exception.) I don't remember the exact limits, and I don't know what device you have so I don't know how much power it emits or what the duty cycle is. Your garage door opener and car alarm transmitters probably work under the regulations that I'm talking about too. I've got a low-end vario, that has a TX unit and a RX that has a LCD readout, and it uses the 70 cm ham band, but the power is low and it only transmits for a few miliseconds each second, so it may very well be legal to use without a license. (Alas, it's crap -- a VAM 200 RX and VAM 100 TX. The TX interferes with the RX in the plane (causing a glitch every second in every non-PCM/DSP RX I've tried, both 50 MHz and 72 MHz) and the RX range drops to about 50 feet if attached to your controller -- it desenses it too much. Sometime I'll have to open up the TX unit and see if I can improve it a bit ...) Also, if you go under the ham rules, you have to do things like identify your station every 10 minutes. I've never seen a vario that included provisions for doing this. For a video setup, you can just take a picture of your call sign, but that's not going to work on a vario. The ham band R/C rules explicitly do not require that you identify your station (and they're the ONLY exception to this that I'm aware of) but they do say this -- The station identification procedure is not required for transmissions directed only to the model craft, provided that a label indicating the station call sign and the station licensee's name and address is affixed to the station transmitter. which I would think would *not* apply to telemetry back from the model craft itself. The FCC ham band regulations do explicitly cover telemetry too, but (97.217) but the station identification requirements are not waived there. (http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/news/part97/ gives the ham band FCC regulations.) Ultimately, unless I've missed something, unless these ham band varios do fit under the `low power -- no license needed' rules, I'm guessing they're pretty much illegal to use, ham license or not, unless you've added something to transmit your call sign periodically. Not that the FCC is likely to care, but that's another matter entirely. I guess one would have to find out exactly how much power a specific unit transmits with, and what the duty cycle is (for mine, it seems to be around 5%, though I haven't tried to measure it beyond listening with a receiver) and then look up the limits in the regulations (and not the ham band regulations.) | therefore I can't use it at the NATS or any other major | contest. Get your technician ham license. It's easy. Or send the equipment to me :) Speaking of FCC regulations, the FCC says this of the 72/75 MHZ bands -- Radio Control (R/C) is a one-way, short distance, non-voice radio service for on/off operation of devices at places distant from the operator. The FCC authorizes your R/C unit to transmit any non-voice emission type for the purpose of (1) the operator turning on and/or off a device at a remote location, or (2) an indicating device for the operator being turned on and/or off by a sensor at a remote location. You cannot communicate voice or data in the R/C. (http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/index.htm?job=service_home&id=radio_control) Somehow I doubt we're only using it for `on/off operation' of our planes. (Though I'm quite certain that this isn't how it's interpeted.) -- Doug McLaren, [EMAIL PROTECTED], AD5RH Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none. -- Doug Larson RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
