| > Luckily as a ham, I believe I can at least operate my Part 90 radio on Part 97 bands. I believe that is correct (also a ham). For curious non-hams, here is how it works. In the US, generally there are three ways radio bands are licensed. 1. No license is required for the operator to use the band, but the equipment used must be certified for operation in that band. 2. The operator has to have a license to use the band and the equipment must be certified for operation in that band. 3. The operator has to have a license to use the band, but can use any equipment as long as what is actually transmitted meets the legal technical requirements for operation on that band (power levels, modulation types, and so on). An example of the first method is the Family Radio Service (FRS) bands. An example of the second method is the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). When I say that the operator has to have a license, that does not necessarily mean that the person actually operating the radio has to have a license. With GMRS, for instance, a business can get a license and that covers employee use without the individual employees needing to get licenses. Ham radio falls under the third method, and offhand I can't think of anything else that does. When a licensed ham is operating a radio all the FCC cares about is what comes out of the antenna, not what equipment produced it. The way hams get licensed is also quite different. The FCC takes a very hands off approach to ham licensing. To get a ham license, you have to pass an exam. For the entry level license, that is a 35 question multiple-choice exam that almost anyone here on HN could learn enough to pass in a couple weekends. There is a license level above that which gives you access to more ham bands, which you get by passing another 35 question exam which is a little harder. There is a third license level above that which allows you full access to everything hams are allowed to do. That one is a 50 question exam and is quite a bit harder than the other two. The FCC neither makes the exams nor administers them. They have authorized 14 organizations as "Volunteer Exam Coordinators" (VECs), and the VECs are responsible for maintaining the pool of exam questions, constructing exams from the question pool, training and certifying people to give the exams, giving the exams, grading them, and reporting the results back to the FCC so the FCC can issue the licenses. |