[arm-allstar] Direct weather transmissions of other services

[Doug Crompton]

We have been around and around on this before but the two statements under
97.113 below generally preclude the direct retransmission of NOAA
broadcasts. Although not recently hams have been cited for this and the
ARRL counsel when asked several years ago agreed that it was not legal.
This is just a warning, you can read this anyway you want. Under current
FCC staffing you would probably get away with it but then you would get
away with a lot of things and that does not make it right. NOAA broadcasts
are directly available in most all areas as are cell phone alerts, etc.  so
the availability of warnings is there now even more than it was even 10
years ago. Also this only applies to direct audio repeating of the original
content. You can convert NOAA or other broadcasts to text and broadcast
them legally. That is basically what the AutoSky program does and the
weather.sh script in Hamvoip gives weather conditions for an area via TTS.
Nothing would stop you from using a NOAA alert to play a pre-recorded
message. Nowadays just about everyone carries a cell phone and an
abbreviated alert such as from AutoSky would direct anyone to get more
information elsewhere.

§ 97.113 Prohibited transmissions.

(a)(5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be
furnished alternatively through other radio services.

    Yes there are plenty of other services that supply this information.

(C)  Propagation, weather forecasts, and manned spacecraft
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.113> communications
retransmissions may not be conducted on a regular basis, but only
occasionally, as an incident of normal amateur radio communications.

    The would incident means picked up on a mic accidentally.

I don't want to start a big discussion on this as we usually have these
about once every 6 months or so when someone gets the idea they want to
rebroadcast NOAA. I just want to make you aware that the legal
interpretation of the rules preclude us from doing this. But then it also
precludes foul language and you can get an earful of that on 75 meters
every night!

*73 Doug*

*WA3DSP*

*http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*