I have never even heard of a boater using anything else but the standard
marine radio ... though  few use walkie-talkies between crew members.

And I have never heard of anyone having a license.

Fred
Tug 44

From: "allen" allendick@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2014 7:09 PM
To: "great-loop@lists.trawlering.com" great-loop@lists.trawlering.com
Subject: ... Re: GL: GMRS Radios?

On 5/28/14 5:01 PM, jonathan olenick wrote:

Yes.  In the US, but not in Canada.  In Canada there is no GMRS
licensing requirement, although there is for marine VHF, both for the
station and for the operator.

The US license is $85 for 5 years as I recall, but the radios are sold
over the counter without request for a licence, and there is little
policing AFAIK, so I imagine that few bother.

On 5/28/14 5:46 PM, fred@tug44.org wrote:

I don't believe (don't know) that a marine radio operator's license is
required in the US for VHF, although Canadian boats with VHF are
expected to have a station license when entering the US, although I have
never been asked for one.

I don't know about US boaters when transiting Canada.

There are laws that are strictly enforced, then there are laws...

And now you have.

FWIW, those of us who hold amateur licenses can not afford to risk those
licenses by operating unlicensed equipment on other bands. Therefore I
also hold a GMRS license for my GMRS equipment (as well as a ship's
license and a Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit).  We are
expected to know better, and are held to a higher standard (there
actually are a fair number of license enforcement proceedings in the
amateur space).

Among the many advantages of GMRS over the unlicensed FRS is that GMRS
can be programmed into commercial-grade radios, use fixed-mount
antennas, and have repeaters.  That said, for person-to-person
communication ashore (or between, say, the engine room and the
foredeck), I find the lower-power FRS to be perfectly adequate.  We use
Kenwood units with the full range of "PL" tones and a voice-scrambler
feature that together afford enough privacy for our purposes.

Allen is correct, marine radios can not legally be used for
person-to-person communication ashore, other than when conducting ship
operations.

-Sean
m/y Vector
lying Fort Lauderdale
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

On 05/28/2014 07:46 PM, fred@tug44.org wrote: