E1738: Unlicensed Simplex Repeater Causes 911 Interference FCC Investigates

The FCC issued a serious enforcement action against Pittsburgh ham KD3ASC for using a modified BTech UV-Pro radio as a simplex repeater that retransmitted Allegheny County’s 911 public safety channel. In this video, we break down the full FCC document, what rules were violated, and the important lessons every amateur radio operator needs to know. Stay legal and avoid heavy FCC fines!

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Speaker 1: Balfang unauthorized transmissions on an MCom frequency in Pennsylvania, and

the FCC came knocking on this guy's door. Check this out.

There's a lot of comments that I get on news

story videos that I share about unauthorized this and that

on GMRS frequencies, Ham radio frequencies, CB radio frequencies, amps

being used on CB, unauthorized something on GMRS or whatever,

and a lot of the comments say the FCC never

does anything. I found a story and this was shared

to me by a couple of you guys on Facebook.

So thank you those of you who shared this story

with me. I appreciate it. But I got this story

and has actually posted into It's probably posted in more

places than this. The two links that were shared with

me is one called a Balfang Owner's Club, and to

be fair, the radio was a BTech uv Pro, not

an actual Bwfang and it had been modified. And the

other group was a Ham Radio Operators. And we're going

to look at the FCC document here. This one starts

off by saying the headline stays unauthorized operation twenty seven

one eight five, which twenty seven one eight five. If

I'm not mistaken his channel nineteen on CEBE radio. I

don't know where he got that, because there's no reference

to that anywhere else any of these other documents. Okay,

but he goes on to say, but the actual text says,

the FCC received a complaint from Allegheny whatever this word is,

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Emergency Services concerning interference to its nine

to one to one emergency communications channel operating on four

to seven zero dot four three seven five megahertz nine

one one operating on four seventy megaherts. Okay, I haven't

heard that before. The guy had a BTech giv pro

that had been modified to monitor the Allegheny County channel,

and its audio relay feature had been activated. Now I'm

not sure what audio relay is. I think maybe it's

for crossband repeat or simplex communication, because it says this

turned the radio into a simplex repeater that retransmitted on

the County channel, and says yep, there was a knock

on the door and the guy surrendered the radio to

the agents. The first comment's the best. This is why

I always disabled transmit on frequencies that I'm not authorized

to transmit on. That's what I do as well. I

have a Harris XG one radio that I recently acquired

and got programmed up, and it monitors the police fire

and EMS frequencies that are on P twenty five not encrypted,

And when I programmed that, I was actually shown how

to program it, and then I added to it later

added a few more channels to it. Transmit disabled was

one of the checkbox that we ticked. It's like, you

always want to turn on transmit disabled because sometimes it's

just a mistake. Sometimes you just reach down and grab

the radio and hit the PTT by mistake, and if

it's on that channel, you don't want to be transmitting

where you're not supposed to. This other article goes into

more detail here, and it has a link to the

letter released by the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, which is right here.

Read that here in a second FCC has responded to

a complaint involving Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania amateur an amateur radio operator,

for operating outside privileges of his Technician class license, causing

interference to local emergency services communication by transmitting on a

public service frequency four seven zero dot four three seven

five megahertz. According to this letter, which is over here

on the FCC's website. Agents investigating an interference complaint from

Allegheny County Emergency Services determined that the interfering signal originated

from the residents of David Knudsen KD three ASC, who

also holds a GMRS license, which is WSDQ eight eight five.

The letter says that Knudsen gave the agents a BTech

uv Pro handheld which had been programmed to monitor the

County Emergency Services frequency. A just determined that its audio

relay feature had been activated, turning the ht into a

simplex repeater that retransmitted the county channel, et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera. So I'll share a link to this in

the description of this video, but it ends with amateurs

are reminded to exercise care when programming their non amateur

frequencies into their VHFUICHF radios into insert transmitting those frequencies

is disabled. So the thing is that most of these

radios will come locked down for this reason. Some people say, well,

at lockdown frequencies, we're just trying to control everybody. Maybe

a little bit of that too, But if you have

a true hamm radio that only transmits inside of the

amateur radio bands. It would prevent this type of action

from happening. Now, a lot of you like to modify

the radio and have it transmit. Actually, the last article

said this had been modified, but the b Tech V

pro is actually a Part ninety radio, which means it's

full of in transmit. So I don't think that if

he got a Part ninety radio then it would transmit

on four seventy four to three seventy five anyway, So

I don't know which one this is. The first article

said it had been modified, but I think maybe they

don't know that the uv pro is a Part ninety

radio and probably hadn't been modified. But you should turn

on transmit disabler, enable to, or disable transmit in the

programming software when you program that frequency, because there's nothing

wrong with listening to these frequencies. Nobody cares what frequencies

we listen to. Some other countries overseas they're not allowed

to listen to certain frequencies. In the United States, we

can listen to whatever frequency we want to, whether they

know it or not, but we can't transmit here and there,

especially on police and fire frequency. So if you want

to learn more about this. If you want to learn

about more about band allocations transmitting privileges on certain bands VHFUHF,

head over to Ham Radioprep dot com and use the

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They've been a sponsor of this channel for more than

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off of anything you might get, and tell them that

Ham Radio two point zero sent you. So if we

go over here to this letter right here, are going

to make this a little bit bigger. There we go,

move that over there, there we get okay. Received a

complaint from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Emergency Services is the one

who reported this. The FCC received a complaint from the

Emergency Services Center in Pennsylvania concerning interference to its nine

to one to one emergency communications channel on Force seven

zero dot four three seven five megahertz. This was in

July of last year. July twenty twenty five, agents from

the Columbia Office of the Enforcement Bureau conducted investigation determined

using direction finding techniques. This is often the case here

that the source of the interference of the signal was

em and aid from the residents of David Knudsen. We

already talked about him and his call sign. After agents

notified him of the interference, he produced a handheld radio,

a BTech uv pro. An examination of the radio determine

it had been modified to monitor the Allegheny County channel

and its audio relay feature had been activated. I think

that's misleading the way that's worded. Because you can monitor

whether the radio will transmit on four to seven zero

megahertz or not. You should be able to program that

frequency into most radios and monitor it and receive only.

But it had been modified to monitor. These radios don't

get modified to monitor, they get modified to transmit. And again,

the BTech uv pro is a part ninety radio, so

it was probably already open transmit on this frequency, So

I don't think that part of the statement is correct.

Connuds and surrender radio to agents. Subsequently, the agents verified

that the interference to the county system had ceased. Radio stations,

including those operating on four seven zero dot four three

seven five megahurts, must be licensed by the FCC pursuant

to the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four and section

one dot nine OZH three A of the Commission's rule.

So it goes on to talk more about that stuff there.

I will link this in the description blow as well.

You guys can go check out that FCC article. But

closing argument here because a lot of the times I

get statements from people just being trolls in the comments

really and they're like, oh, well, free men, don't ask

permission to talk. Why do I need a license to

talk on this frequency? We should just be able to

talk where we want to. Okay, Well, you don't have

permission to talk on police and fire and Emergency MCom

stations for your local city, county, state, or federal government

first responders nine to one one call centers again, law

enforcement EMS, ambulance services, we can't transmit over there, and

for good reason, Because those frequencies are needed for first

responders and emergency communicators. Those frequencies have been allocated. So

the next time you think, well I don't understand why

should I have to get a license to talk on

these frequencies for HAM radio, Well, because those frequencies are

designated for HAM radio. There's plenty of frequencies out there

that are designated for free band MERZ, FRS, CB radio,

some of your marine band channels. You can purchase your

own commercial frequency and do whatever the heck you want

to with it. So there's allocated frequencies for different services

out there. And if you think that HAM radio shouldn't

have a license or shouldn't have permission to talk on it,

then I guess you should just start keying up on

these police and fire frequencies and see if your local

authorities have anything to say about it. Obviously the FCC

had something to say about it this time. How many

of you have seen an experience or a situation like

this in your area? What would you do if you

heard something like this? And hopefully it's just a mistake

and not someone being nefarious about it, So but a

comment below let me know if you heard this story

or any others like it. I appreciate you guys being

here today. And if you like this video, check out

these up here. This is what YouTube thinks you want

to watch next. Seventy three