[aprssig] legality of aprs on balloons under Part 97

[Earl Needham]

On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 5:43 PM, <ak209 at lafn.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> A friend of mine is a science teacher of high school students.  He
> wanted to launch a balloon with a scientific payload, having seen
> the ARRL promote student balloon launches that use APRS to transmit
> telemetry and balloon position at http://www.arrl.org/news .  So I
> contacted my local ARRL rep, Dick Norton N6AA, Director ARRL
> Southwestern Division, to find a local speaker on balloons and APRS.  Dick
> replied, CC'ing Din Henderson N1ND, the regulatory guy at ARRL
> http://www.arrl.org/regulatory-advocacy with
> "As Dan Henderson said, simply installing an APRS unit in a balloon as you
> suggested and turning it on would be considered broadcasting, which is
> not legal in Amateur Radio."
>

I call BS.

What about the automatic ID on a repeater?  It isn't addressed to anyone,
so I guess that's broadcasting, too?  Nope.

Vy 7 3
Earl
KD5XB
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