Batboard

Guys,

Question for you. I am part of a Search and Rescue organization in North Carolina. I have a UHF repeater coming up this way and I have a good lead for tower space. Right now, the machine will be on GMRS since we are all licensed for that, but we'd like to get our own licensed UHF pair so we can stay a bit away from the public free frequencies. I'm curious what the process is to do this, and what the cost might be. Any help would be appreciated.

Figure $200-$300 in frequency coordination fees, plus another $155 to the FCC if you're applying for business band channels. If the forms are too intimidating to fill out yourself, you may be looking at another hundred dollars or so to hire a preparer.

The cheapest route is to fit yourself into the old Special Emergency radio service as a not-for-profit search and rescue organization. No FCC filing fees. With refarming, you are eligible for any of the 453 or 460 MHz UHF frequency pairs. You'll have MUCH BETTER luck getting a new frequency if you can do a narrowband channel pair, by the way.

I've always liked dealing with IMSA for these frequencies. A fellow named Richard Kinsman heads up their frequency coordination department, and he's always been super to work with. They are online at http://www.imsasafety.org/fc/frontpage.htm or can be contacted by phone at (401) 738-2220.

Good luck.

I just finished getting a SAR group up with a mobile repeater on 451.xxx, I would concor with the above poster as those are good estimated to budget for. We always work with a seperate preparer -

http://www.badgertowers.com/license.html

Best of luck,

Craig

Thanks for the tips, guys. I appreciate it. I'll keep these in mind. It might be easer to do it this way then trying to do it in my own. I have to get tower space first.