FRS/GPRS/fire/police/marine/aviation/SAR or any other non-ham bands, even with a valid
operators license for those bands/frequencies is generally illegal except for the bare minimum
of communications required in a life threatening communication when no other options are
available. See the sections above for more details.
Bear in mind that these are more or less limited to line of site communications. From high
ground you may be able to reach a fairly distant repeater located on a mountain top. Standard
rechargeable batteries (especially cheap imports) may be dead when you need them; battery
holders for alkaline batteries (with longer shelf lives) are available. If you do not have a ham
license, how are you going to legally test them to see if they work? These cheap models are
less reliable than good ham equipment.
Li-poly batteries may have self discharge rates of 1-5% per month. Self discharge rate
increases dramatically with temperature. In addition, the annual permanent capacity loss
increases dramatically with temperature. Permanent capacity loss is much faster when the
battery is 100% charged vs 40% charged. At 60C and 100% charge, the battery permanently
loses 40% of its capacity in 3 months.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
For more routine communications, you should have other devices which can be legally operated
by all members of your party.
FCC Certification
The UV-3R (and trivial variants UV-100, UV-200) radio recently (July 2011) passed FCC
certification.
Documents submitted to the FCC for the Part 90 certification process:
https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?
mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=186528&fcc_id=\%
27ZP5BF-3R\%27
This may make newer versions of the radio, with the FCC sticker, legal for Land Mobile Radio
Service.
Can I use this radio on PMR446 (European equivalent
of FRS)?
Not legally. The laws concerning PMR446 are very similar to those governing FRS (see above).
They also specifically prohibit the use of transceivers which are also capable of operating on
other services.
FAQ History
UV-3R FAQ v. 2012-01-27
Page 35
