FCC Part 95 Changes

Zappa

Road Warrior
NES Member
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
62,762
Likes
50,400
Location
Living Free In The 603
Feedback: 28 / 0 / 0
I'm surprised they'll be allowing FM on the 11 meter band.
Back before I got my ticket in 93', I played a lot on 11 meter.
I had an HR2600 with a Chipswitch and a Jo Gunn 3 Star antenna, I talked mostly sideband all over the world.
Even got 49 countries confirmed by QSL. I'd have 50 if the guy in Tasmania had sent me the card.
These radios also did all the modes, including FM, but we only used that locally to mess with the people running legal CB's. [laugh]
The difference between the far more common HR2510 and the HR2600 was the 2600 had a PL tone board and did repeater offsets.
With the Chipswitch aftermarket CPU, that radio covered everywhere from 10 down to 12 meter.



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XevGDwC0_Z0
 
I heard about this yesterday. How will new and old CB radios operate on the same frequencies if someone is transmitting on AM and another person is on FM? There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility.
 
I heard about this yesterday. How will new and old CB radios operate on the same frequencies if someone is transmitting on AM and another person is on FM? There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility.
slope tune? LOL...
 
Dunno why they bothered, people had informally been using FM on and off there for decades.
 
I'm surprised they'll be allowing FM on the 11 meter band.
Back before I got my ticket in 93', I played a lot on 11 meter.
I had an HR2600 with a Chipswitch and a Jo Gunn 3 Star antenna, I talked mostly sideband all over the world.
Even got 49 countries confirmed by QSL. I'd have 50 if the guy in Tasmania had sent me the card.
These radios also did all the modes, including FM, but we only used that locally to mess with the people running legal CB's. [laugh]
The difference between the far more common HR2510 and the HR2600 was the 2600 had a PL tone board and did repeater offsets.
With the Chipswitch aftermarket CPU, that radio covered everywhere from 10 down to 12 meter.

Most chipswitch rigs couldn't actually do 12. Radios would need extra work for the PLL to stay locked below 25 mhz.
 
I heard about this yesterday. How will new and old CB radios operate on the same frequencies if someone is transmitting on AM and another person is on FM? There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility.

slope tune? LOL...

Ask 1000 people who operate a CB and you'll get 5 that even know what slope tuning is.😆


There is no compatibility. It is going to be continuous noise ( if it wasn't already ) for anyone using the same channel and different modes.

The FCC SCRWED UP BIG TIME. By not either dividing the spectrum up for the different modes, or by not extending the band edges either higher or lower for FM only. Ths is an extreme public inconvenience, perpetrated by another government bureaucracy. They should have extended the band lower by 500kc and designated it as FM only.


The only persons to benefit from this change are CB radio companies. There was one in particular that lobbied for this rule change ( Cobra or President ) and they stand to make millions from it from people having to buy new radios with FM/AM/SSB compatibility.

Did you notice that there was little to no coverage of the proposed rule making advertised anywhere for the three years that this has been in progress?
 
Dunno why they bothered, people had informally been using FM on and off there for decades.
Yes, but ot wasn't at all widespread or legal. Now they've opened the flood gates for maximum interference with people using incompatible modes.
 
There is no compatibility. It is going to be continuous noise ( if it wasn't already ) for anyone using the same channel and different modes.

The FCC SCRWED UP BIG TIME. By not either dividing the spectrum up for the different modes, or by not extending the band edges either higher or lower for FM only. Ths is an extreme public inconvenience, perpetrated by another government bureaucracy. They should have extended the band lower by 500kc and designated it as FM only.


The only persons to benefit from this change are CB radio companies. There was one in particular that lobbied for this rule change ( Cobra or President ) and they stand to make millions from it from people having to buy new radios with FM/AM/SSB compatibility.

Did you notice that there was little to no coverage of the proposed rule making advertised anywhere for themthree years that this has been in progress?

The reality is it doesn't matter, only a very small % of users are using boring "type accepted" equipment anyways. Everyone else typically runs what they want. " Joe average CB in the camper" guy is not going to be tripping all over himself to get an fm rig. Nor are there going to be "mode wars" etc.
 
Yes, but ot wasn't at all widespread or legal. Now they've opened the flood gates for maximum interference with people using incompatible modes.
Not really. NOBODY has followed anything in part 95 for decades, the exceptions are cheapskates and accidentally.... lmao
 
Not really. NOBODY has followed anything in part 95 for decades, the exceptions are cheapskates and accidentally.... lmao
The reality is it doesn't matter, only a very small % of users are using boring "type accepted" equipment anyways. Everyone else typically runs what they want. " Joe average CB in the camper" guy is not going to be tripping all over himself to get an fm rig. Nor are there going to be "mode wars" etc.

I understand that the rules have been about null and void for fifty years. I was in the transitional period when PLL chips were just coming out. O2A,MB8719, and a host of others....and the info on mods was everywhere.

The thing is, the band will be rendered useless by incompatible modes on the same frequencies. That's why the ham bands have restrictions on FM mode in most HF bands. VHF and UHF are the opposite, they restrict SSB/AM/CW.

Imagine every other QSO on 75m is FM?????? The entire spectrum would be unuseable.
 
I understand that the rules have been about null and void for fifty years. I was in the transitional period when PLL chips were just coming out. O2A,MB8719, and a host of others....and the info on mods was everywhere.

The thing is, the band will be rendered useless by incompatible modes on the same frequencies. That's why the ham bands have restrictions on FM mode in most HF bands. VHF and UHF are the opposite, they restrict SSB/AM/CW.

Imagine every other QSO on 75m is FM?????? The entire spectrum would be unuseable.

On 75M honestly more of that is because of an convention/agreement vs law. FM just isn't practical. It will remain mostly unused in the long run. People will try it out a few times and be like, meh, whatever. AM, and especially SSB have much better range.

On the CB? Not that many people outside of trucks are even on the anymore except when the band is open. If there's no DX you'd be lucky to find 2 channels in use other than 19. Back when i got on in the 90s there were way more users. And way more people operating too. Now most can't be bothered. None of my 11M friends are even around anymore. Most of the guys i talk to on there now are also hams.
 
On 75M honestly more of that is because of an convention/agreement vs law. FM just isn't practical. It will remain mostly unused in the long run. People will try it out a few times and be like, meh, whatever. AM, and especially SSB have much better range.

On the CB? Not that many people outside of trucks are even on the anymore except when the band is open. If there's no DX you'd be lucky to find 2 channels in use other than 19. Back when i got on in the 90s there were way more users. And way more people operating too. Now most can't be bothered. None of my 11M friends are even around anymore. Most of the guys i talk to on there now are also hams.
You're missing the point entirely.

It has nothing to do with practicality at all. Every modern transceiver will go FM at the push of a button. It is about spectrum sharing and respectful use of the spectrum.


Imagine every other qso on 75m, 40m, 20m using 25khz wide FM ???

Just think about that for a minute. There is enough animosity as it is on those bands with people using wider than 3kc bandwidth.....everyone complains about others being too wide. The spectrum fills up, people running way more power than necessary 90% of the time. It's a clisterf**k......all the time as is.

Now, inject 300 people using 25kc FM and a 1.5kw amplifier into that picture.....the band becomes useless. Whether it's convention or rules, that is the ONLY thing keeping those bands useable at the moment.

The same thing is going to happen with 11m. On 11m right now, there are guys all over the country running 5-10-20-50 kw on dirty, misaligned tramsmitters and their signal ( interference ) can be viewed on a scope as ot covers below 26.965 all the way up into " the free band".

CB was deliberately designated as a low powered, channelized spectrum, with limited range and equipment parameters, unlike the ham bands which are licensed and open to experimentation etc. with some modicum of cooperation and respect being the convention between hams.

That too is fading away and soon the entire ham spectrum will be rendered unuseable as people disregard those conventions and other part 97 rules and put wider and wider signals, bigger and bigger amplifiers etc.
 
You're missing the point entirely.

It has nothing to do with practicality at all. Every modern transceiver will go FM at the push of a button. It is about spectrum sharing and respectful use of the spectrum.


Imagine every other qso on 75m, 40m, 20m using 25khz wide FM ???

Just think about that for a minute. There is enough animosity as it is on those bands with people using wider than 3kc bandwidth.....everyone complains about others being too wide. The spectrum fills up, people running way more power than necessary 90% of the time. It's a clisterf**k......all the time as is.

Now, inject 300 people using 25kc FM into that picture.....the band becomes useless. Whether it's convention or rules, that is the ONLY thing keeping those bands useable at the moment.

The same thing is going to happen with 11m. On 11m right now, there are guys all over the country running 5-10-20-50 kw on dirty, misaligned tramsmitters and their signal ( interference ) can be viewed on a scope as ot covers below 26.965 all the way up into " the free band".

CB was deliberately designated as a low powered, channelized spectrum, with limited range and equipment parameters, unlike the ham bands which are licensed and open to experimentation etc. with some modicum of cooperation and respect being the convention between hams.

That too is fading away and soon the entire ham spectrum will be rendered unuseable as people disregard those conventions and other part 97 rules and put wider and wider signals, bigger and bigger amplifiers etc.

Lol with the dwindling numbers of operators worldwide none of this matters or will matter much. Nobody is going to change much on 11m with FM. It will be a dusty detent on most radios as it is now. 75% of the people out there with HF or export gear already aren't using FM, some truck drivers with awful consumer level radios offering it won't change much. Nobody is going to put up with the louder static when their squelch breaks constantly from the noise down there, especially during mobile use.

The FCC screwed themselves with part 95 honestly. The rules are incongruous with the characteristics of the band. The power/equipment limits are stupid and everyone ignores them. Same with ham radio. The only thing keeping most Ham HF ops under 2kw is it gets expensive to go beyond that especially when dealing with compromise antennas and multiple bands.

Honestly a bigger threat to radio (wether ham or cb) now is the RFI from those cheap f***ing LED pot grow lamps. That shit is awful, another gift from china.
 
Lol with the dwindling numbers of operators worldwide none of this matters or will matter much. Nobody is going to change much on 11m with FM. It will be a dusty detent on most radios as it is now. 75% of the people out there with HF or export gear already aren't using FM, some truck drivers with awful consumer level radios offering it won't change much. Nobody is going to put up with the louder static when their squelch breaks constantly from the noise down there, especially during mobile use.

The FCC screwed themselves with part 95 honestly. The rules are incongruous with the characteristics of the band. The power/equipment limits are stupid and everyone ignores them. Same with ham radio. The only thing keeping most Ham HF ops under 2kw is it gets expensive to go beyond that especially when dealing with compromise antennas and multiple bands.

Honestly a bigger threat to radio (wether ham or cb) now is the RFI from those cheap f***ing LED pot grow lamps. That shit is awful, another gift from china.
Again, you are missing the point....I don't know if you are deliberately skirting the issue or whether you just don't know enough about propagation.

Specifically: If lets say ten ham operators within 50 miles of eachother are using 25kc wide FM @ 1000w, NOBODY ELSE within the diameter of each of those guy's signals will be able to use SSB.

NOW multiply that ten man group, times every other group around the country.

You now have a spectrum full of mixed signals, where nobody can effectively communicate.

The band becomes JUNK.

Address that issue specifically. Please.

Also, expense has little to do with the issue. People are paying up to $15,000 for high end radios and an amplifier capable of 5-10 kw can be had or built for a fraction of that amd the prices on solid state high power modules is coming down rapidly.
 
Again, you are missing the point....I don't know if you are deliberately skirting the issue or whether you just don't know enough about propagation.

I know a lot about propogation, lol. 11M goes all over the place when the band is open. SO? we already know that.

Specifically: If lets say ten ham operators within 50 miles of eachother are using 25kc wide FM @ 1000w, NOBODY ELSE within the diameter of each of those guy's signals will be able to use SSB.

They're not going to though, because it's stupid. Even CBers don't like FM on 11M. It "being legal' will change nothing...

Address that issue specifically. Please.

It's not an issue, and it will not be an issue, well, at least any more than the current chaos is.

Lol, you are missing my point. There are literally thousands of transceivers on 11M with an FM position already on the selector. Nobody uses it. This apocalypse you speak of
hasn't happened over the past 20+ years. Actually it's longer than that, even. I don't expect anything will change. Especially not with dwindling participation. How many people other than OTR truck drivers are even installing new CBs in vehicles? Even most of the jeep guys don't do it anymore. Every enthusiast 11M operator I know already has an FM capable rig. And probably a good 50% of truck drivers already do, too. The ones that don't, don't care. Their radio sits on ch19 with their half broken firestick antenna, and if it gets them a few miles up and down the road thats all they need. When these radios hit the market absolutely nothing will happen. A few truck drivers will f*** around with the FM position for a few minutes with their buddies and then they'll go back to AM and forget its there. Just like the people with FM already do, now.

If Jimmy Peng could respond to this thread he would laugh at your apocalyptic outlook. He would say something like "Listen to me, round eye! I have been importing.... 40 foot containers.... full of CB radio, with FM knob... since when disco was big deal!!! FCC try to stop me, but I just pay fine and laugh at them. " Actually he wouldnt say that, because from what I understand he was a nicer guy that that, but he would definitely still laugh at your assertion.

My point: FM is not "new" to 11M regardless of the FCC's feelings on the matter. Nor is their regulatory posture going to radically alter how people use CB radio service. To believe
otherwise is completely delusional and not aware of the history of use and abuse on the band, and the existing use patterns which are heavily rooted in legacy. The only thing that will happen is a herd of new, weak, shitty type accepted radios will come out that have a 2nd or 4th position on the mode knob that will sit basically unused by most people that will end up buying them. They will end up in some OTR trucks and such and an errant motorhome, jeep, tractor or two, but the FM detent will still mostly go unused. Especially considering lots of these itinerant type users that buy type accepted junk use the radio very little anyways. (I mean lets face it, type accepted CBs pretty much suck) They turn it on 19, try to get info from the truckers, then when they're done they turn it off.

Also, expense has little to do with the issue. People are paying up to $15,000 for high end radios and an amplifier capable of 5-10 kw can be had or built for a fraction of that amd the prices on solid state high power modules is coming down rapidly.

Expense has a lot to do with it. Most US hams are f***ing skinflints, for starters. Most don't want to pay for Heliax or $50 connectors, etc. Also after a point, it virtually forces
monobanding or narrow banded antennas, so you can get around the hassle of impedance matching a lot of juice. Maybe within the top 3% of US HF
stations there are some dedicated enough to do it, most wince at their wallet and go load up their G5RV with their MFJ tuner they just fixed with the cold solder joints in
it. Most of the products in the market off the shelf can't cope with more than a couple KW, so that means all custom shit. The community of people running over 3K in this country is pretty small. Not to mention they cant talk to many about it because 80% of their fellow hams would turn their own mother into the kopsch. There's just that knowing nod at the hamfest when you see some guy with a two wheeler with bulging wheels pushing a transformer large enough to power a tetrode with handles.... [laugh]

Also Mosfets? Last I looked a BLF188XR wasn't cheap. Like $180 or some shit. Blow 4 of those and you're out over 700 bucks. Unless there's some magical $20 device that makes 1KW. Building large mosfet amps is challenging. Nobody really bothers going past like 4 modules on those because then keeping the whole pile of shit stable becomes challenging. It's much easier to just build off a steel tube.

It's always going to be expensive, at least in terms a skinflint ham can't tolerate. [rofl] Even if you do your own work and build your own shit, it's still expensive.
 
Again, you are skirting the issue of simultaneous compatibility in the alloted spectrum space.
 
Again, you are skirting the issue of simultaneous compatibility in the alloted spectrum space.

Lol, I'm not skirting anything at all. I agree on paper it's a stupid idea. The problem is 11M does not, will not, and will not EVER, exist in that sanitary vacuum worldview you are thinking of. It never has. The reality is when the dust settles nobody is going to be flocking to run FM on straight 40. And nobody is going to run into vast amounts of issues from people running FM, at least not in a sense that is statistically significant compared to other issues one might encounter there. [laugh]
 
Lol, I'm not skirting anything at all. I agree on paper it's a stupid idea. The problem is 11M does not, will not, and will not EVER, exist in that sanitary vacuum worldview you are thinking of. It never has. The reality is when the dust settles nobody is going to be flocking to run FM on straight 40. And nobody is going to run into vast amounts of issues from people running FM, at least not in a sense that is statistically significant compared to other issues one might encounter there. [laugh]

Alright.

You've made it clear to me that you don't understand the technical issues involved.

When it starts in the ham bands, recall this thread.
 
Alright.

You've made it clear to me that you don't understand the technical issues involved.
I know exactly what the issues are, if you had a bunch of people actively using FM all over, there wouldn't be a whole lot of useful spectrum left. I understand that.

That scenario on 11M is not plausible nor realistic. It's like saying that everyone is going to start driving at 150 MPH just because there are no speed limits. [rofl]

When it starts in the ham bands, recall this thread.
When what starts? [rofl]

This is about Part 95, it has nothing to do with "ham bands". Nobody is going to run standard FM on 75M or whatever anytime soon. Even if it WAS legal they still wouldn't do it. [rofl] FCC basically allows FM on 29Mhz or higher for all ham bands, but there are tons of places well above 10M where people do not use it by virtue of gentlemans agreements. Chaos has not erupted as a result. [laugh]
 
I know exactly what the issues are, if you had a bunch of people actively using FM all over, there wouldn't be a whole lot of useful spectrum left. I understand that.

That scenario on 11M is not plausible nor realistic. It's like saying that everyone is going to start driving at 150 MPH just because there are no speed limits. [rofl]


When what starts? [rofl]

This is about Part 95, it has nothing to do with "ham bands". Nobody is going to run standard FM on 75M or whatever anytime soon. Even if it WAS legal they still wouldn't do it. [rofl] FCC basically allows FM on 29Mhz or higher for all ham bands, but there are tons of places well above 10M where people do not use it by virtue of gentlemans agreements. Chaos has not erupted as a result. [laugh]

Give it time.
 
No one will use FM. Since it sucks outside of the line-of-sight bands in the VHF + spectrum.

Would you use this mode? On the ham bands or otherwise, @Uzi2 ?

Good luck trying to get someone, never mind 5-10 people to regularly use FM on HF or CB, the argument seems moot to me.

Then, if your signal is 25kc wide, then your 1500 watts uses the energy for that big ol' fat signal, right?
CW bandwidth is at the opposite end since it is such a narrow bandwidth.. 1500 watts is way more efficient as it focuses that power into a laser beam of happiness.

anyway....
 
No one will use FM. Since it sucks outside of the line-of-sight bands in the VHF + spectrum.

Would you use this mode? On the ham bands or otherwise, @Uzi2 ?

Good luck trying to get someone, never mind 5-10 people to regularly use FM on HF or CB, the argument seems moot to me.

Then, if your signal is 25kc wide, then your 1500 watts uses the energy for that big ol' fat signal, right?
CW bandwidth is at the opposite end since it is such a narrow bandwidth.. 1500 watts is way more efficient as it focuses that power into a laser beam of happiness.

anyway....
If nobody is using it or "going to use it" why did Cobra Radio spend millions lobbying the FCC for a rule change on 11m?
They did it to sell radios.......and when people buy those radios, the FM feature will be used. People will like the quiet squelch.

When that feature is used, EVEN IF IT IS NARROW BANDED, someone will find a way to defeat that narrow banding and turn up the deviation, then amplify that over deviated signal to the point of complete distortion.

When that happens, you'll have lots of over deviated FM signals occupying three to five times maybe more the bandwidth. Not only will it crowd the alloted spectrum, it will eliminate the possible use of adjacent channels on SSB.

CB is still in use in more areas than you'd think and the FM mode is going to cause issues.....count on it.
 
Give it time.

We will be lucky in 20 years if there are people still using radios recreationally or otherwise in a serious way, to be quite honest. I'm not worried about FM or anything else. Things have changed quite a bit since I originally got in the air in the early 90s. There used to be tons of people around that could fix gear and stuff like that and most of those people are gone or non-existent. The few good guys that are left that work on radios or amps are in high demand to the point of basically having to cut off the work that they take in every year. That's not because there are a ton of operators but because they are probably like 20% of the good technicians that existed back then. Most stuff now is a throwaway affair and it's kind of sad. The only upshot is modern gear is quite durable. The internet and other distractions have killed radio as a pastime for many.

If you were to come up to me and ask me what I think was the biggest threat I think lack of interests is and I think RFI is a serious f****** problem because the fcc even gives less s*** about RFI than they do anybody following rules or anything like that. If they spent as much time blasting importers of Chinese garbage LED lamps as they did bloviating about other garbage we would be a lot better off... ham, cb, SWLers alike. That s*** is everywhere and basically all it does is pollute the entire spectrum and because it's so distributed it's like a f****** cancer.... radio Enthusiast in the past 10 years have been punished far worse by broadband RFI than any of this crap We're talking about here. It's difficult to stop because it's everywhere. In the old days it was just some guys furnace ignitor or a refrigerator butter warmer gone AWOL. Now it's thousands of Chinese grow lamps and other garbage floating around that just spray s*** across the HF Spectrum 24/7. And because the important people are moving away from HF nobody gives a shit.
 
The reality is it doesn't matter, only a very small % of users are using boring "type accepted" equipment anyways. Everyone else typically runs what they want. ...
The way I amuse myself at chain truck stops on the way to/from Dayton
is to squint at the locked glass CB display case and see if I can spot any
non-type accepted Kykker-style rigs. (The kind of rig that
the FCC once bent over a truck chain Big Time for selling).

Haven't spotted one yet, but hope springs eternal.

... Nor are there going to be "mode wars" etc.
CB? Never say never.

CB was deliberately designated as a low powered, channelized spectrum, with limited range and equipment parameters, ...
... and allocated space on a band that propagates using ionospheric skip.

Morons.

... soon the entire ham spectrum will be rendered unuseable as people disregard those conventions and other part 97 rules and put wider and wider signals, bigger and bigger amplifiers etc.
Wayne Green Lives.
(The editorial wherein he presciently outlines
how ham radio came to be raped at WARC-79;
how all ham radio spectrum allocations were rescinded world-wide).
 
Back
Top Bottom