Family Radio Service
The Family Radio Service is an improved walkie talkie system, that does not use the Citizens Band (CB) at 27 MHz, or the 49 MHz band also used by the first cordless phones. FRS also uses FM instead of AM, and has a much greater range. Although initially proposed by Radio Shack for use by families, FRS has also seen significant adoption by business interests, as an unlicensed, low-cost alternative to the business band. This is an American standard, one providing roughly the same service and having the same licensing restriction in Europe is PMR446 having eight channels in the 446MHz range. Thus one cannot legally use the FRS radio in Europe or PMR446 in the USA.
Technical information
FRS radios are limited to 500 milliwatts in the U.S., according to FCC regulations. Channels 1 to 7 are shared with GMRS, the General Mobile Radio Service. A license is required for those channels only if the power output is over FRS limits, up to GMRS limits. Unlike Citizens' Band (CB) radios, FRS radios frequently have provisions for using CTCSS codes, allowing for more private conservations by filtering out unwanted chatter on the same frequency. The use of repeaters and interconnects to the PSTN are prohibited, unlike in GMRS.
| Channel | Frequency (MHz)
|
| 1 | 462.5625
|
| 2 | 462.5875
|
| 3 | 462.6125
|
| 4 | 462.6375
|
| 5 | 462.6625
|
| 6 | 462.6875
|
| 7 | 462.7125
|
| 8 | 467.5625
|
| 9 | 467.5875
|
| 10 | 467.6125
|
| 11 | 467.6375
|
| 12 | 467.6625
|
| 13 | 467.6875
|
| 14 | 467.7125
|
