Aviation handheld radios, instructors, student solos...

ClimbnSink said:
From what I understand you do need a license and the FCC has busted a few people for using handhelds at an airport.
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When, where, and under what circumstances?

In any event, the issue of licensing is two-pronged -- operator and station. The operator issue was put to rest by the reg change mentioned above, but that doesn't address the need for a station license. However, as noted by others, and ClimbnSink's post notwithstanding, AFAIK the FCC isn't going around to airports looking for CFI's talking on handhelds to their trainees in the pattern at nontowered airports even if they may be taking action on reports of base stations operating without a station license.
 
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I was thinking of the glider club referenced in a prior post.
Ron Levy said:
When, where, and under what circumstances?

In any event, the issue of licensing is two-pronged -- operator and station. The operator issue was put to rest by the reg change mentioned above, but that doesn't address the need for a station license. However, as noted by others, and ClimbnSink's post notwithstanding, AFAIK the FCC isn't going around to airports looking for CFI's talking on handhelds to their trainees in the pattern at nontowered airports even if they may be taking action on reports of base stations operating without a station license.
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Steve said:
Well, in the Executive Summary it states

we are allowing the use of mobile radios for direct communications between ground service personnel and flight crews on frequencies allocated to the Aeronautical Enroute Service

imho, if you meet the criteria in paragraph 31:

...the use of mobile radios at airports for communications by ground service personnel with aircraft or the associated enroute station will not operate on air traffic control frequencies or cause interference to air traffic control communications. Also, the operators of an aeronautical enroute station will ensure that personnel using the mobile radios are properly trained and made aware of the restriction on the use of the equipment.

it seems to me you can talk to an aircraft or the FBO, or the Airboss, over unicom or other frequencies that don't interfere with ATC communications using a handheld without the specific handheld being "licensed". ( I know at least at one airshow the Airboss frequency is the local TRACON sector "alternate" frequency. )

The amendment recognizes the safety benefits of using a handheld radio and I think that if it was being used in the context of improving safety there is no prohibition in its use. Might not be the letter of the law, but certainly meets the intent.

Just one man's opinion.

(in other words I agree with you...:wink2: )
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You need to read deeper than the executive summary. Yes, mobile radios can be used...by personnel associated with an aeronautical enroute service provider operating under a station license held by ARINC.

27. Of the approximately 5,000 local area stations in the continental United States and Hawaii, all are licensed to ARINC. Often, however, the stations licensed to ARINC are in fact staffed by a particular local user, e.g., an airline or other organization operating aircraft at a local airport. ARINC exercises its control over these stations through lease-contract arrangements, whereby it leases the station from the user and executes an agreement with an appropriate user's employees binding them to ARINC's control. Nominal compensation is paid to ARINC under these agreements to cover the cost of ARINC's frequency management, licensee oversight, and liability insurance. ARINC makes periodic inspections of these stations in order to maintain control of station operations.
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Twenty or thirty years ago, this wasn't an issue. Instructors didn't have handhelds and, amazingly, students flew around the pattern all by themselves.
 
kkoran said:
Twenty or thirty years ago, this wasn't an issue. Instructors didn't have handhelds and, amazingly, students flew around the pattern all by themselves.
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Likely the same was true for fly-ins. :rolleyes2: Can't imagine some circumstances being very easy to deal with in some locations and times these days, though.
I saw a potential collision situation today in the pattern behind me while I was trying to teach a student landings. Neither pilot saw the other and both were on a more or less parallel course less than a quarter mile apart on downwind. This at the same time that about three other aircraft were arriving at the aircraft from different directions. Things can happen pretty fast to make a nice peaceful situation stressful for even a better trained pilot. I'm typically not worried about my students in the pattern at all. I'm often more worried about who they may be sharing the sky with.

Ryan
 
So if you are just using a handheld to monitor and not transmit, is that "use" or "operation?"
 
Sac Arrow said:
So if you are just using a handheld to monitor and not transmit, is that "use" or "operation?"
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If the question was serious, neither.

You can listen all you want. Only making a transmission would be considered "operating" the radio station(s), for these particular types of radios.

And the Family Guy thing is double-funny for us radio/RF guys... since the FCC is always very concerned about your types of EMISSIONS from your station...

My Station Emissions always get more powerful and better modulated after Taco Bell or Del Taco. Usually Amplitude Modulated, but sometimes Frequency Modulated. :eek: :crazy:
 
denverpilot said:
If the question was serious, neither.

You can listen all you want. Only making a transmission would be considered "operating" the radio station(s), for these particular types of radios.

And the Family Guy thing is double-funny for us radio/RF guys... since the FCC is always very concerned about your types of EMISSIONS from your station...

My Station Emissions always get more powerful and better modulated after Taco Bell or Del Taco. Usually Amplitude Modulated, but sometimes Frequency Modulated. :eek: :crazy:
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Question is very serious. Possession is nine tenths of the law. If you are caught possessing a transmitter, you have already complied with nine tenths of the law.

See where I'm going with that?
 
Nah, in the few enforcement actions I've read, they nail down the case by capturing transmissions with the fancy monitoring van's gear so they can "fingerprint" the transmitter. (Ramp up time, audio clicks and button press audio, etc... All make each transmitter pretty easy to ID... Think of it like ballistics study of a firearm used in a crime.)

For a license that costs $200/10 years... Or $20 a year... They're so understaffed they're not rolling a truck unless you're interfering with another properly licensed station, or some turd is making the Field Office's life hell by calling every day and writing letters.

In the OP's case, there's a "suspected turd" involved, so the simple fix is $200 to forget about renewing it again in 10 years. ;)

Again, I have other FCC licenses at risk so I'd comply with the license requirement. CFIs and others with little to lose, may not care...

I had someone "bootlegging" one of my callsigns once. I had a couple of recorded chats with a Denver Field Office Agent after a VERY connected person complained (probably to a Commissioner or high-level Engineer) about the interference.

I had an airtight alibi and also didn't own any gear appropriate for the frequency. The chat was really to built a docket against the true interference source, which I learned had been easily triangulated to a location about 45 miles northwest of my home. I was President of an Amateur Radio club at the time, and was an "easy" target for the trash who wanted to cause trouble, I guess.

RF Direction Finding is not difficult for the FCC anymore. It's automated, in fact. Don't transmit, you're good. They're busy filtering through "hits" on the automated systems.

I've also been the person on the other side of this complaint, and indirectly involved in a lawsuit by someone who was operating illegally through someone else's "Repeater" station. That one got as far as a warning letter from the FCC counsel.

Both of those situations took YEARS to play out. They really don't have the time.
 
ClimbnSink said:
I was thinking of the glider club referenced in a prior post.
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...which, it appears had a full base station operating, not just an occasional use of a hand-held by an instructor monitoring a solo. If they don't have a station license for that, the FCC will go after such an operation if they find out about it.
 
denverpilot said:
Yes they do. And "willful" is the key word here. Once notified that you're operating an unlicensed station in ANY radio service in the U.S., if you continue to operate after that... you're "willfully" violating the law, and the fines start to stack up rather quickly after that.
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Notified by the FCC... not notified by the local radio geek/nazi.
 
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