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"Richard" <rvanhoo@attglobal.net> wrote:
> Mark makes good point about not operating these old radios. While you can
> get them "into" the ham bands they probably don't meet todays
> standards and are therefore not legal.
That's not quite the point I was making... they CAN be used in ham
bands, with some limitations. AM or CW gear in the HF bands is
perfectly legal, though a lot of folks get all huffy when they hear
"that old AM junk" on the air. Most of the tactical FM sets will cover
the 6m ham band, but the problem is their deviation is about 3x as
wide as modern rigs. They don't receive well in crowded bands, due to
their lower selectivity, but that's your problem, and there's no law
against receiving with them. When transmitting, if you keep your
deviation low enough to avoid splattering in any modern receivers
(maybe by modifying the radio, or maybe by simply backing off from the
mike), then you're probably more or less within the bandwidth limits.
It would be inconsiderate to use the old wideband rigs in an area with
a lot of 6m ham activity, but the band generally sounds pretty dead
around where I live.
I don't think there's any problem with a licensed ham using surplus
gear on the ham bands, as long as he or she makes sure that the rig
meets the required technical standards. Even if the rig is on the
borderline, hams are essentially self-policing and the FCC no longer
has armies of enforcement agents, so you're pretty safe as long as
you're careful about avoiding interference with anybody else. Hams are
explicitly allowed to design and build their own gear, modify gear
designed for use in other radio services, etc, and they have the
responsibility for compliance with standards.
I don't disagree with folks who advocate using CB or other gear in
parades or off-road, but I collect green radios as well as green
trucks, so I personally use only authentic military radio gear in my
own trucks, and only use it to communicate with other licensed hams.
Just my own two cents...
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://pgp.ai.mit.edu/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 02 2000 - 23:51:27 PDT