danoroth wrote:Listen mate, I have never said and never would break federal law, why in the world would I do that?
From the responses you were making, asking "well who's going to catch me then" and stuff like that, it seemed pretty clear to me that you were intending on ignoring the advice you were being given. If I made a wrong assumption about that then I apologise.
I'm just looking for a friend decent radio at a price under $100
You're right, you're probably not going to find one, because none of the radio manufacturers seem to be too worried about making CB radios for use in Australia. Why? Because we're such a small market. Those FRS radios that you were originally looking at, you're going to get a much greater number of people buying those from the US because their population is many times ours. So there's more of an incentive to make them cheaper as you're going to sell more. But here in Australia, the number of CB radios being sold are going to be only a small percentage of radios that you could potentially sell in the US. So what do you (as a manufacturer) do? You either don't bother making radios compatible with Australian CB, or you charge a higher price to offset the cost of making radios for this market that are different from other markets. The exact same thing happens with all sorts of other goods. Anything where Australian conditions or specifications are different, it translates to either lower availability or higher cost.
and earlier I said the government IS ripping everyone off trying to buy a CB radio, the government makes only one kind of radio legal to be operated, and gives stores the advantage to sell them for a ridiculous price, and for a CRAP range.
No, that answer is just as silly today as it was when you said it the other day. It doesn't matter how many times you say such a thing, it's still wrong. The Australian government doesn't set the prices, the manufacturers and retailers do. They don't make "only one kind of radio legal to be operated", they publish a list of specifications and say "your radios must do this and this and not do this and this". Any manufacturer is welcome to make and sell radios that comply with those conditions as cheaply or as expensively as they want. The government has no say in any of that other than the original specifications. And this isn't something "different" that the Australian government is doing. The governments of every other country in the world are doing exactly the same thing. The FCC which is the US government body that regulates the radiofrequency spectrum in the US has conditions very similar to ours for these FRS radios. It's not some new scam that the Australian government has dreamed up, just to make our lives harder.
danoroth wrote:Well i received it today, literally just then and ALL the other buyers in Australia said they use them between the 2 CB radios and have had no worries, for about 5 years.
But they are breaking the law and eventually when it catches up to them, they'll have the radios confiscated off them at the very minimum and get a fine and or prison time as a maximum.
But i AM taking all you's knowledge and really am not going to use these, thank you for your help.
That's good to know!
Also i want to know, how old you have to be to get a CB license and where from?
There is no longer any such thing as a "CB licence" for an individual. So you can't get one. As Nosferatu says, CB operates under a "class licence" which means "providing the radio you buy meets the correct specifications, it's licenced". The same applies to USB wireless LAN dongles for example. They use radio frequencies but you don't need to apply for a licence to plug one into your PC and operate them because they are part of a (different) class licence that says "all these wireless LAN dongles must meet these specifications and if they do then they're licenced".
Annnnnd if any1 knows if there is a ACMA building in Perth WA, and if not. Who even enforces the 'rouge' frequencies in Perth??
The ACMA don't have a physical office in Perth any more. According to
this document, they have offices in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. But that doesn't mean they don't operate in Perth, it just means they don't rent any office space here. I can prove they operate in Perth because I've had a visit to my house from an ACMA radio inspector and he left a nice little card with his details on it. So yes, they are active here in Perth and everywhere else in the country.
As for who enforces people operating on incorrect frequencies, the ACMA do. They may contract out the actual detection and investigation part to a third party, but when someone is knocking loudly on your door to confiscate radio gear from your house, it'll be a real-life ACMA inspector often with a couple of mean looking Federal police officers along as well.
danoroth wrote:Thanks mate, so if i were to get a license i could use the CB on any channel, within the frequency of the chosen license?
The licence that Nosferatu was mentioning has nothing to do with CB radio, it's something entirely different again. There are some kinds of radio activities that you need to get a licence to do. This usually involves sitting one or more exams.
VHF marine radio for example, you need to sit an exam for and pass a licence. (A bit like how you need a skipper's ticket to operate a boat, you also need to have a radio licence to operate the VHF marine radio on that boat...)
If you work in aviation, you need an air-band licence. So if you're a pilot, as part of your studies to get a pilot's licence, you may also study for and get an air-band radio operator's licence as well.
But if you had a marine licence, you couldn't transmit on the air band frequencies for example, or if you're a pilot you can't go transmitting on the marine frequencies. They're different and need a different kind of licence.
The same goes with CB - a marine or air-band licence doesn't do you any good for CB because it's a different kind of radio system. The only difference is that to use a proper CB radio you don't need to sit any exams or get any licences, it's all covered under this "class licence" system.
So providing you buy a CB radio, that has those 40 (or 80) channels, can't be reprogrammed, can't operate on anything other than those defined channels, and meets the other requirements of the CB Radio Class Licence, then you're good to go. Just buy the radio, turn it on and start talking.
Other kinds of radios have different rules though (and that's why these programmable ones you were originally looking at aren't allowed because they come under different rules to CB).
Nosferatu wrote:I'm not a CB user myself and I don't have any CB radio so perhaps other members can correct me if I mistakenly typed any misleading information
You're pretty spot on!
vk6hgr wrote:Looks like it probably meets the class license specs and should be ok. Too bad it's only 40 channels though... UHF CBs should really be set up with the new 80 channels these days.
I agree. Danoroth if you want a radio under $100 that's legal for Australian CB, I agree with VK6HGR, there's nothing there that stands out as being a problem other than the fact that the new specifications for CB radio says there's 80 channels and not 40. There wouldn't be any harm in getting one of these, unless someone was transmitting on channel 56 for example, since that radio doesn't have a channel 56
You could take a look on eBay, but be careful what they're advertising. I've just had a look and there's a heap of radios that are advertised as "CB" but really aren't. Look for the word "programmable" in the description. If it says that or if the picture shows a frequency rather than a channel number, stay far away...
Here's
one example that'd probably be OK. A pair of 80-channel UHF CB radios that are NOT programmable to work outside the CB frequencies. I know you said you wanted under $100 but here's two for $144 so that's only $72 each, does that count?
The down side is that they're only 2W power rather than 5W but all the ones that are advertised on eBay as 5W radios aren't the ones legal to use here...