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Talked to WalMart Today on a HT?

ok, so today my ol' lady and i were at walmart shopping for assorted x-mas stuff and of course, i stayed out in the truck because...... well, you know. at least, if you're a guy you know, lol. anyway, i have all 5 MURS channels programmed into my HT and every now and then i give a shout on those channels. i've never heard anyone on these channels so i always hope maybe someone bought some MURS radios or gets a HAM rig modified for the freqs as i did. well today while in the truck i give a shout on channel 1, then 2, then 3 and 4 and, as always there's no response. but on channel 5 i hear someone say, "Yes, I can hear you". i light up and ask where they are located and his response was, "Grocery receiving". i'm thinking WTF? so i ask him if he was in walmart and he said yes. then i ask if that is a walmart radio to which he also replied yes. by this time another person pipes up on the radio and i assume it must have been a manager because she did not sound happy. she says this is a walmart radio and that i had no business on the radio. i then proceeded to tell her that i was talking on a Multi Use Radio Service channel and that the FCC has allocated that frequency as such. i told her i was a licensed HAM operator and that i was not breaking any rules and that i, in fact, was not even exceeding the allotted output wattage for that frequency. well by now a town police officer equipped with a walmart radio has piped in and asked where i was located. right then i cut all communications and just turned the radio off. OK, NOW FOR MY QUESTION, LOL: did i do anything wrong? can i be held accountable for interfering or something? i got kinda scared when i heard the cop start talking. what do ya'll think?
I think u did the right thing turning your radio off so u didn’t get arrested so yea I don’t think u did anything wrong
 
I think u did the right thing turning your radio off so u didn’t get arrested so yea I don’t think u did anything wrong
I don't think the OP will see your reply, he has not been seen here in 5 years. Fun topic though.

What it really comes down to is Walmart being too cheap to get a business band radio license(s). Their choice to use throwaway radios in an unlicensed band and avoid the hassle of dealing with a radio tech in every state, rich as they are, does not give them ultimate claim to the channel. Unlicensed operators (Walmart) are subject to the interference of other legitimate users, and the OP was (type acceptance aside) a legitimate user simply making a radio contact.

If the Walmart execs had half a brain, they would switch to one of the Motorola radios pre-programmed for UHF color dot channels reserved for business use. They require a cheaply attained license which would keep the parking lot baofeng users in the illegal realm while still maintaining the throw-away nature of the radios to avoid costly service technicians. And I am fairly sure the FCC would be cool with Walmart, as a whole, getting the business license, instead of one for each location.

If the OP was still here, I'd tell him to go back and give that cop a piece of his mind and a copy of the FCC regulations. And while he was in town, may as well stop by Taco Bell and start telling customers "We are sold out of everything except pink tacos", because nearly all fast-food radio licenses expired in the 90's and nobody ever renews them. The reality is that the RF rebels you may find here are actually the ones that follow the rules more closely. It's the big corporations that do not and shenanigans like that force their compliance (or they cannot complain). Why should I be expected to adhere to the rules when the people making all the money, the ones whom these rules are designed to ultimately serve, do not?

If I pick a 150MHz frequency that is not being used around here and set up a 50w repeater for the family with a couple mobile units, the FCC would hang me up by my toes and beat every single penny out of my pockets, and each of my family members caught using it too. But if a multi-million dollar cement/asphalt company with 3 high-powered repeaters and hundreds of mobile units lets their license go on expired for decades, nobody says a thing.
 
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There was a "retailer" in our sleepy little town.
He decided he needed radios for his sales team, did the same thing, bought some cheap programmable radios, put them on MURS channels.
He was made aware that it was a shared frequency and there likely would be other user's there, he said knew that.
This is a a tourist town, you would be surprised how many people use those frequency's when traveling around.
One weekend a group of kids gets on playing around as kids do.
He gets on and tells them to get off the radio because it's his business frequency.
They pay no attention to him and keep playing on the radios so he says he is going to have the sheriff find them, take the radios away, whoop there ass and jail there parents for using his private frequency.
It only took Dad and his friends about 30 min to figure out the store location, (this is a small town) and walk through the front door asking for the person that threatened there kids with a ass whooping....
The owner refused to come out of his office, things escalated and the sheriff did indeed get called.
The only one that got spanked was the owner, verbally, by the Sheriff for threatening bodily harm to a minor.
All the employees were told after that if you hear anyone else on the radio do not respond to them.
At all.

73
Jeff
 

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