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Garmin To Marry GPS with FRS/GMRS
zornorph writes "Garmin is set to come out with the Garmin RINO in June, which integrates FRS and GMRS radio with a GPS unit, which will give it up to a 5 mile range of communication. Garmin has a unique twist though, to quote their site: "What really separates the Rino from the rest of the FRS herd is the ability to "beam" your exact location to another Rino user within a two-mile range using the FRS spectrum." However, there are concerns about the implementation of this "beaming", as it causes interference with GMRS users."
Generally its not a good idea for a company to screw wtih the FCC's carefully regulated spectrum. I'd image Garmin would get in a lot of trouble if they interfered with any other band. But, because Garmin is a large company with lots of influence and most of the GMRS users are small potatoes by comparison I doubt the FCC will do anything other than urge them to be more careful about staying withing their bands.
Those who do not study Amateur radio are doomed to reinvent it.
We've had this "location beaming" capability for some time - it's called
APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).
We've also had interference problems, a**holes on the bands, and repeaters causing interference. That's why we have licenses and are held accountable by the FCC - so that if somebody starts doing this, they get hit with a $8000 fine.
Just look at Children's Band (CB) - one big heterodyne squeal from end to end. Why did this happen? Because the FCC allowed anybody to use CB without a license, and stopped enforcing the law there. Now Chicken Band is like reading at -1.
If they want to stop this, the FCC needs to enforce the law. Go after anybody causing interference, require radio manufacturers to show their nifty new features don't cause harm, etc.
Otherwise, FRS will be CB at a higher frequency.
(And personally, I'm glad there's a place for these morons to play that isn't where I am trying to communicate.)
(Of course, many BPOFs (brass pounding old farts) will say the same about me, since I am a DSNCT (dirty stinking no-code tech).)
www.eFax.com are spammers
... its existing laws about regulated frequencies, and when it does, it does so selectively. I have a friend who lives in a huge planned housing development with acre-sized lots. Dave's neighbor runs a ham-style system with a huge antenna, and spends hours a day chatting with remote buddies. The interference from the system wreaks havoc on the entire neighborhood telephone, cable, and broadcast systems. Landline (even corded, not to mention cordless) telephones frequently are unusuable because of the interference. But despite repeated calls to the FCC from Dave and many of his neighbors, nothing is ever done. (Seems like a good use for some SEMTEX or a hand grenade.)
The point is, the FCC may have pretty strict laws about interference. And it may spent lots of bucks and time on Big Industry. But in my experience, the FCC has no interest in enforcing the laws for Mr. Small Guy - that is, unless Mr. Small Guy does something that gets Big Industry mad.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
for Lojack type applications. Stuff one inside the dash or in a fender and connect to be powered by cars electrical system in case the battery runs down. If your car gets stolen you can track it down. In Lojack systems, only the police have access to this info and will deal with it "when they get around to it." Also makes it easy to tail a spouse susspected of cheating or making sure that if they kids borrow the car, they really are just going to the library.
Now what IS scary 'bout the Patent pending is their own page...
... and in the same textbox want to patent it [so that only they can provide this life saving feature? naaa.]
they claim it were an life-saving feature
My wife is almost ready to drop huge amounts of money on a set of these for the family. "Popular Science" had a "What's New" blurb on them this month. That write-up made it sound like the units could be set to spontaneously transmit their positions periodically, and that they could draw a map of the other units' current positions relative to each other and to any other waypoints that have been set.
The appealing part of this is that we go camping once in a while, and have had the kids get "lost" (ie., out of sight) more than once. Nothing's worse than your wife going nuts because the 3yo has wandered off... If the kid's position can be plotted without the kid having to do anything, we're there! (ESPECIALLY if the radios come in a ruggedized version, maybe without the screen for the kids' units.)
While the integrated GPS may have been done before by HAMs, this is the first "for the masses" product that has done this. I still wonder how they're going to get around the data-over-FRS restrictions, though.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.