Ok, time to kick it up a notch...

[nakman]

It is illegal to transmit outside the band of your license. Your radio comes from the store with your legality in mind, that's why it says "error" should you key up on the wrong band.

Here's the mod for your 8800 that allows you to override this: http://forum.ih8mud.com/electronic-toys/204177-yaesu-8900-extended-transmit-mod.html

I think this is a good idea, and I will probably do this some day. In my opinion the benefits of being able to talk to police, fire, flight for life, etc. in an absolute emergency far outweigh the costs of running around with an "illegal" ham radio. I never have been much of a conformist anyway.


discuss...

 

[DaveInDenver]

This comes up all the time. You know the rules and that it's illegal.

Something to think about is that public service communication is moving to a state-wide trunked 800MHz system. So if you were going to attempt to break in, you'd first need an 800MHz trunking radio and would have to know the right talk group to be on to get the fire or police dispatch and not the parks and recreation or snow plows. There could be dozens of talk groups and unless you know the right talk group, the appropriate people will never hear you. Denver PD alone has about 200 talk groups, from robbery to homicide to narcotics and traffic. Trunked systems only have one set frequency, the control channel. That channel tells all the radios on the system which frequency to use with which talk group and the frequency distribution changes all the time, at least daily and sometimes several times a day.

For the places that still use simple VHF 2-way radios, it might be more likely to work. But there is probably better coverage by ham repeaters than public service repeaters in the backcountry. Think about it, why would there be police communications in the middle of nowhere if there's no cops? If there's a fire or police department, there's /very/ likely a cell tower not far away. Then how do you KNOW it will work? That you in fact have the right frequency and DCS or PL tone. You don't without trying it...

Just my $0.02.

 

[Seldom Seen]

Why bother ?? Take a look in the ARRL repeater guide in the Colorado section. Over in the right hand column you'll see the notation "LiTZ" for several machines. By transmitting a LiTZ on these repeaters, you'll activate a connection directly to a CHP dispatcher.



Finding out what a LiTZ is, would be a lot easier than mucking with and possibly FUBARing your rig

 

[DaveInDenver]

By transmitting a LiTZ on these repeaters, you'll activate a connection directly to a CHP dispatcher.

Doing LTZ always gets CHP or will it just be some sort of emergency agency? Just thought that it might be a sheriff, fire or could be just 911 as well.

Groucho and Brian will cover this, but what he's talking about is if a repeater is 'LiTZ' capable, that just means that holding down the zero key for a long time (I think it's 3 seconds) will automatically dial an emergency contact. 'LiTZ' (the 'i' is just a place holder) means Long Tone Zero and has been around for as long as DTMF dialing has been around. Essentially most all auto patchable repeaters will do this as a public service to hams without needing to know the code to open the regular auto patch.

 

[nakman]

Cool stuff, thanks! see I knew I'd learn something..

 

[Groucho]

Transmitting outside the HAM bands...

...has been around forever. The need to modify a radio to transmit in these portions of the band would only seem necessary if the radio owner wanted to use their radio on a commercial freq at work. For instance, both of the railroads I worked for(Cumbres & Toltec Scenic and the Georgetown Loop)both use VHF radios to communicate. I could modify my HT to be able to transmit outside the HAM band while working for these companies(I already can receive) in order to use my own radio. Is it legal? No. The radios are not type accepted compatable, according to the FCC. Is it ever really necessary? Not likely. Like Dave said there is more often better coverage with the HAM bands than with the services outside the HAM bands, so getting emergency assistance is closer within the HAM band than outside it.