June 2017 - Time to throw away that old 40 Channel UHF

Hi Les

You are spot on and even though there are now 80 channels, they do not exceed the current 40 channel band width.

So now from what I have told, between the current 40 channel frequency, of say channel 1 and 2 sits the new channel 41, between 3 and 4 the new 42 and all the way to channel 80.

I know station people that have many old 40 channel units and they said there is no way they would get rid of them just to suit some fancy new law.

When I asked our GME rep how are they going to police it, he said that they honestly have no idea and the Government does not either.


Let's see what happens.


Cheers



Stephen

Well, that just sounds typical GOVCO bureaucracy doesn't it ?

If the 40ch doesn't interfere with 80nb, then why worry about people that want to stay with the 40ch unit they may have ?
It won't affect much, as mentioned, using the upper 41 - 80 (that are allowable for general chat) isn't happening much at all, so people that might be 'forced' to change are probably still going to be staying in the lower 40 ch anyway, even if there is less traffic and / or better clearer reception in the upper range.

One thing I do dislike since I opened up the top 41 - 80 is the scan time has literally doubled, even though all duplex and other reserved bands have been skipped.
I know, I can skip the whole upper lot if I want, but people will start using them more as time goes on, and it helps to pick up on if there are others nearby on the tracks.

Yep, would love to know how a ban would be enforced, short of pulling up everybody in a vehicle with a UHF antenna to check what transceiver is on board.
I don't think they'd be bothered normally, and would the Police be interested enough to make it a routine check ?
They'd probably see it as a stupid piece of legislation too and generally ignore it if they come across it out there.

Les, some units have a definable scan range.Mine does but I'm too lazy to study the manual.

BTW, how many folk regularly listen in to #5 and #11?

Yep Sig, I have the irrelevant chans marked not to scan.
I usually have a handheld scanning where it might be useful, and group is on whatever chan got group use.
This includes 5 and 11, but haven't ever heard anyone calling on 11.

I drove to Melb today, son was on 5w handheld in his car, we talked a fair bit on ch 49 to see how it was with clarity, and it was definitely cleaner to my old ears.

Sigmund,

I scan every channel, all the time, except ch 22 & 23, the telemetry channels.

Found scanning a very useful "tool" in my previous life, to monitor what certain persons were up to.

Bob

There will be no policing, bureaucrats make laws that are unenforceable because there is no one to actually do it. Just like when am CB radios first came on the market, they were sold in every electrical store but were completely illegal. Eventually they were legalized but you had to have a license. Dont know of anyone who actually got a license. It will be the same as the 40 channel sets, eventually they will fail and be replaced with 80 channel jobs but there will never be any policing of it.

Hi Muzbry.

Some radios can be changed from 40 to 80 channels by certain button presses/sequencies from what I understand.
Depends on their age.

William

Muz, if you had given us the make and model of your radio someone who is across this would have been able to tell you definitely.

I am sure if it was manufactured as a 40 channel you won't be able to change it to 80 (at least by button presses. You can change my Uniden between the two but it was built with 80 channel capabilities.

I purchased 2 40 channel GME hand helds 20+ years ago.
One was fitted with channels 41 to 60 (receive only). I was invited to have the other one similarly fitted.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

"I am sure if it was manufactured as a 40 channel you won't be able to change it to 80"

There are a lot that were able to be easily converted without a screw driver or soldering iron. Some of these were built before the narrow band CB was mooted by ACMA. The guts of the radios were used in commercial radios and the narrow band was used on parts of the 403 - 520 MHz band years before they started talking about narrow band channelling for CB.

Thanks. I stand corrected

Gday Peter D
I cant go outside and get the model number Peter , its hot and i might melt.Also, i have been out all day and just come in , getting the camper ready for my son.

"will depend on the transmit frequency accuracy of the 40 channel units."

Yes, that is one consideration. Back in the days when I was involved with these specifications transmitters were expected to not wander off frequency more than one part in 1,000,000. In other words your transmitter is permitted to operate in a range of +/- 476 Hz. That means that two transmitters can be operating at frequencies that are spaced nearly 1 kHz closer together than the assigned channel spacing.

The major consideration is the width of spectrum the transmissions occupy. FM transmitters occupy more spectrum than AM transmitters (ie their sidebands spread much further than AM sidebands.) If you go to the "Radiocommunications (Citizen Band Radio Stations) Class Licence 2015" (ie the licence you operate your CB under) you will see in Schedule 1 Part 2 the following:

"Operation of a CB station must only employ F3E or G3E with a transmitter power not exceeding 5 watts pZ and with a necessary bandwidth not exceeding 16 kHz."

Similarly in Part 3 you will see that 12.5 kHz equipment occupies 10.1 kHz. The bandwidth of the receivers can be a little more than the occupied bandwidth of the transmitter.

In the practical consideration the width of a 25 kHz signal is +/- 8 kHz and that of a 12.5 kHz signal is 5.05 kHz. Add those together and you get 13.05 kHz which is wider than the 12.5 kHz spacing. Add the frequency drift of two transceivers into the equation and you get a further possible 0.952 kHz overlap.

In practice this overlap does cause interference in a 12.5 kHz channel spaced receiver from an offending 25 kHz spaced transmitter

Hi Phil

I wonder if that is a current web site for one very good reason.

When the Government brought in the new 80 channel radios, they gave all dealers, from memory, 12 months to sell all existing old 40 channel radios and after that date, what ever it was, it was illegal for any Licenced dealer to sell the old 40 channel radiios.


Cheers



Stephen

Gday Stephen,
Definitely current - the same 40 channel units are available elsewhere. Can get 40 channel handhelds too.
I'm not sure of the difference, but I'm guessing these sets just use channels 1-40 but with the new bandwidth.
Cheers
Phil

Do you need a licence to sell radios?

Hi Phil

That seems very odd, as all licensed authorised dealers were advised years ago that there was a grace period to sell through all 40 channel radios and after a certain date, it was illegal to sell the old 40 channel units.

Shaker

A licensed authorised dealer that sells these UHF ratios is licensed to sell them from the manufacture and offer full service in the event that something goes wrong.

Other people that do sell them for various reason buy them from a third party and not direct from the manufacturer. A good example of this is we at work sell UHF radios to car dealers here in Clare, who in turn on sell them to new and used car buyers. Yes they sell the radios, but can not buy direct from the manufacturer and are therefore not licensed dealers from the manufactures point of view. In the event that there is an issue with a radio that is sold from the car dealer, the dealer then directs the customer to the licensed authorised dealer for the related problem.



Cheers


Stephen




Cheers



Stephen

That product is listed as discontinued on the Uniden site.It's a very old product. The 40 channels are 25 khz wide ( the old standard)

It's either old stock, and old ad or click bait. Either way it cant be sold legally ( since the end of 2012). I am surprised to see Prestige still advertising it.

Stephen,
I was wondering about the licensing as well, but your reply suggests that you're not referring to regulatory licensing, but to a commercial relationship between manufacturer and an authorised reseller. Is that correct?

Cheers

It's my understanding that there are no licencing requirements for CB equipment sales authority.

There are technical compliance issues such as C tick on the distributor or manufacturer, and use compliance on the user. Anyone in the middle can sell them subject to the CB equipment class law which is a stand alone piece of legislation ( eg 25 khz 40 Channel can not be sold after 2012)

ACMA tends to focus on equipment compliance and rules of use. How it is sold doesn't seem to be a concern unless the equipment is non compliant.

So in this case they would just target the seller for breaking the law. Since 2012 those CB's are non compliant. Use of that same equipment is ok for a defined period under the sunset clauses ( June 2017)

ACMA does this all the time. For example they want to reclaim some 900Mhz frequencies ( to sell at lots of dollars to telcos). Sale of 900mhz wireless microphones was banned about 2 years ago, but use is still ok for the next few years. Same same.

Hi Frank

You are spot on.

What many people do not realise is that GME manufacture 2 types of UHF radios both on the same frequency, but the difference is the stock standard unit that is sold to the general public is only a 5w maximum transmission radio, while their commercial unit is 25w.

Only licensed dealers are able to sell the 25w units and you will never see these sold by third party sellers, or places like eBay.




Cheers



Stephen

I phoned up Prestige Communications:
Those sets are the old 40 channel wideband.
Yes they are priced to clear. (great prices!)
Yes it is legal to sell them.
Yes, they may become useless if the Govt goes ahead and implements their ban on 40 channel sets in July 2017.

In that case, unless the consumer is notified of that at the time of sale, they will entitled to a refund in June 2017.

That was the primary reason I upgraded Sigmund. With my previous GME TX3200 (?) I noticed a drop off in reception/clarity/call it what you will when listening to transmissions from 80ch sets No such problems since buying the equivalent 80ch TX 3500.

It got heaps worse since operator licences were no longer required & they started selling hand helds in toy shops!