I heard that some hunt clubs are starting to use Marine VHF Radios instead of CBs or FRS. Is this legal or is there any special license required to operate these in a non-boating environment? Anybody heard anything?

they are NOT legal to use on land. on high the radio output is to high for land use. i am not sure now but it used to be quite a large fine.

I definitely know it's illegal, although it's not the first time I've heard of it. The question is - and I'm sure that's why the club is doing it - who's going to enforce it? I wouldn't do it though.

I work in the EMC field and my company hosts IEEE EMC Society meetings on a regular basis. One of the most faithful attenders of these meetings is the chief field enforcement engineer for the Seattle region.

He has said on multiple occasions that the profitable enforcement activity for his agency is the enforcement of the marine VHF radio service. They will catch plumbing companies, construction companies, Electrical companies on a regular basis boot legging on that service. Apparently the fine is quit stiff and the agency get to keep those funds within thier region.

The main source of violator reports is the coast guard. They monitor themarine VHFfrequencies for public service on a regular basis and report violators to the FCC.

So the bottom line is, if you operate near a federal water way that has a Coast Guard presence, your transmissions on the public air waves are being monitored.

Dsuqared