FCC Narrowbanding Deadline January 1, 2013

[SteveOFD 176]

For those of you who don't know, the Federal Communications Commission has mandated that all radios in the bands from 150MHz to 512MHz be narrowband compliant by January 1, 2013.

What this means is that previously all radios, and frequency assignments, were in wideband (typically 25KHz between frequencies). Narrowbanding will "create" new frequencies by authorizing "new" frequencies in between the old 25KHz frequencies.

Example: Wideband - 460.0000, 460.0250, 460.0500

Narrowband - 460.0000, 460.0125, 460.0250, 460.0375, 460.0500

Both VHF-High (150-174MHz) and UHF (450-512MHz) are affected by this mandate.

Low Band frequencies are not required to be narrowbanded.

What this means is that if you are operating radio equipment that is wideband, you will be out of compliance on January 1, 2013. Most radio equipment manufactured after 1997 has the capability of operating in either wideband or narrowband mode. If this is your case, reprogramming your radio equipment for narrowband operation will make the equipment compliant.

Your FCC license also needs to be modified to reflect narrowband operation. You can check this out at the FCC's Database Website. Enter your license callsign, then click on the "Frequencies" tab, then click on the individual frequency. This will bring you to a page which shows the "Emissions" for that frequency. If your frequency is already narrowband compliant it will show an "11K_ _ _" emission designator. Wideband is shown as "20K_ _ _".

Here are some links which go into more detail:

FCC Narrowband transition

Narrowbanding.com

Narrowbanding.com - additional resources

[Alpinerunner 61]

Good info. I've been hearing about this and will need to take care of it. I've also heard only Minitor V are capable of receiving narrowband (not III or IV). Is this true

Edited August 2, 2011 by Alpinerunner

[antiquefirelt 994]

Good info. I've been hearing about this and will need to take care of it. I've also heard only Minitor V are capable of receiving narrowband (not III or IV). Is this true

The Minitor IV's will take narrowband frequencies, at least in the 15X range, we've been using them here on narrow band for a few years and the receive end of things is not an issue. Even the 3's can be utilized I've been told as some FD's in our area have been using them as well, though I do not believe we've had a PL on the freq, so that might be the issue with 3's.

[SteveOFD 176]

For those of you (any FD, PD, EMS agency) who have not checked to see if your FCC license needs to be narrowbanded, here is a website to check out your status. The site is at PublicSafetyTools.info.

To start, in the top left corner of the page click on the State, then click and scroll to your city (do not click on the County).

Then at the bottom left click, on the blue report button.

When the Frequency Report Information box pops up, click "2007 and above Excel Document" box. Click "Generate Report" in this same box. In this box a new file will be generated, click on this link. Click "open" on the File Download box.

On the Excel screen, along the bottom left, click on the page title for "LOCATION - NB" (to see licenses that have been narrowbanded), or "LICENSE - WB" (to see if your license is not narrowband compliant).

By generating a report for "Westchester County", it appears that 84% of the "Fixed Transmitters" are narrowband compliant. So in Westchester County it appears that 16% of the "Fixed Transmitters" need their FCC licenses to be upgraded. Lookin through the results, there are at least six Westchester County FD's that need to address this licensing issue including some Career and some Volunteer Departments.

NOTE: Now is the time to start the process to get your FCC license compliant (I am working on ours right now), not as the January 1, 2013 deadline nears.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

[antiquefirelt 994]

The Minitor IV's will take narrowband frequencies, at least in the 15X range, we've been using them here on narrow band for a few years and the receive end of things is not an issue. Even the 3's can be utilized I've been told as some FD's in our area have been using them as well, though I do not believe we've had a PL on the freq, so that might be the issue with 3's.

I must amend my statement above. It appears that the Minitor IV's work on some narrowband freq's well, and not so well on others. Our dispatch freq just changed to another narrowband freq that the fourth digit is a 5 not a 0, thus the Minitor IV won't accept the freq and must be programmed slightly off band, causing some audio loss(10-20%). Our old freq which was narrowband but had a 0 as the fourth digit worked fine, I suspect that any narrowband that falls on a zero is like a non-narrowband frequency? My knowledge is very limited on the topic. All I know is what works and doesn't work in the field in my area.