License Free Radio

Radio free license? Well anyway in the USA everything is regulated by the feds, the fcc. If you’re into prepping you probably have heard people talk about radios. CB radios, ham radios, walkie talkies, all kinds of terminology gets thrown around. Things get a little confusing when talking ham radio, although it’s not so bad when you start to understand it. But still, it can be a jump. So to keep it easy we’ll get into the license free stuff.

The oldest and probably best known of the license free bands is the Citizens Band or CB. CB was a huge craze in the 1970’s, think the movie Smokey and the Bandit. In radio terms cb is on the 11 meter band. This means it’s at the high end of the high frequency or HF band. Which as radio frequency goes, it’s actually fairly long wavelength. CB is the lowest frequency license free band available. It is known for having ‘skip’ sometimes like HF ‘ham’ radio is known for, although it is not a consistent phenomenon. The ‘legal’ limit on CB is 4 watts, so not much power. AM, SSB and recently FM modulation are all allowed. There are 40 ‘channels’ or channelized frequencies available on CB. AM only CB’s are the least inexpensive and most common. CB is known a little bit for outlaws running huge amplifiers, you’ll probably hear it. It’s really beyond the scope of this article, I’m not recommending getting any amps and joining the Super Bowl in CB 6.

The most common license free service now is FRS or the Family Radio Service. There are 22 channels here in the 462.0 and 465.0 MHz band. This is UHF or ultra high frequency territory. The FRS channels are shared with the GMRS channels/frequencies. FRS started in 1996. Originally FRS power was limited to only .5 watt, but was later increased to two watts. I believe earlier radios, some could do FRS and GMRS, having 5 watts available on GMRS. GMRS is not license free, however it’s simply purchasing a license, no test. The license is for your whole family, you get a callsign to use. GMRS allows more power, up to 50w. Repeaters are allowed and there may be repeaters available in your area. GMRS radios may have some flexibility as far as changing antennas, where FRS are fixed. Both FRS/GMRS are FM modulation.

MURS or the Multi Use Radio Service is the newest and least widely known of the three license by rule aka license free bands/services. It is in the VHF or very high frequency band, so much higher than CB/HF but lower than FRS/UHF. There are only 5 MURS frequencies at around 151.0mhz range. So this is just a little bit up higher in frequency vs. FM broadcast for reference. MURS is not narrow band unlike FRS/GMRS. AM and FM modulation can be used, the power limit on MURS is 2 watts just like FRS.

Ok so that’s it for license free frequencies that anyone can use in the United States. There are three, CB, MURS and FRS. GMRS requires a GMRS license, which requires no test. Amateur or HAM radio has 3 different levels of licensing, each requires its own test. GMRS opens up more power and more capabilities. Ham radio offers lots more power and capability potential, however amateur radio is different because you are totally dealing with frequencies. There are no set ‘channels’. So Amateur radio is another step up in complexity vs. license free services. An amateur radio license is different from a GMRS license, so your ham ticket/callsign doesn’t work for GMRS and vice versa. One must understand that these radios will only work with others of the same type, on the same channel. So an FRS radio will only work with another FRS radio, on the same channel. So an FRS radio on its channel 3 for example won’t work with CB 3 or MURS 3.

Some of these radios may be capable of being programmed with ‘privacy’ tones. This is a misnomer because nothing you broadcast on any radio is private at all. There’s no expectation of privacy. What these are are sub audible tones that can be used on a given channel. They’re either called ctcss(pl) or dtmf tones, there are two types. This is called tone squelch, you can have your radio set to reject any transmissions that aren’t transmitting that specific tone on the carrier frequency. Personally I don’t use tones. They may have value to you but they are NOT encryption nor do they provide privacy in any way. This is probably the most complicated aspect of license free radio you might encounter. It’s halfway hard to understand just because it’s marketed as something it’s not, explained badly by a buzzword. Essentially the whole idea of the license free services is to make radio easy and accessible. The FCC standard, ultimately as far as I can tell is to not cause harmful interference. So the license free part of the bands have been allocated to make it stupid simple for people to have low power radio communications without even the possibility of causing interference out of band. You just buy the proper approved equipment!

You may be familiar with the Baofeng radio. This is NOT an FRS radio. They have some really cheap non keypad programmable Baofeng. Also, the ubiquitous UV5R in channel mode from the factory, understand the factory set channels are all over the place and you may wind up on frequencies you shouldn’t be on. Some Baofeng models and similar now from Wouxun, Tidradio, Radioddity and more are specifically GMRS radios now if you want to go GMRS. The Baofeng and some similar are ham radios so they may only do the ham band or they may be ‘opened up’ to transmit on license free frequencies. The FCC dosen’t like this and they’re supposed to be cracking down. I do think opened up radios are available still now. Anyway I am not encouraging you to get one, don’t broadcast out of band on an unapproved radio and say I told you to do it, because this is telling you not to. Anyway Baofengs and ham radio are really beyond this article. I did just want to touch on their relationship to license free considering how common baofengs are.

The whole radio license business is all about transmitting. It’s perfectly legal to buy and own whatever radio equipment. You can receive, listen to anything you want. Transmission is where things get complicated. But license free makes it easy. Generally it’s probably less secure because there’s a lot of license free equipment out there. Probably depends on where you’re at really. There is not a lot of radio traffic on FRS or CB in my area at all. Other people in other places report high CB or GMRS traffic. In an emergency the license free service could potentially put one in contact with amateur operators with Amrron. Amrron had the channel 3 project, so tuning into channel 3 on any of the license free services and putting out a call may be a possibility to reach someone when other methods aren’t available. FRS works pretty good within a couple of miles generally. It works good for car to car, around the homestead or camp. Ok so that’s a wrap. Way too much information about something simple! Until next time friends.