I noticed on Garmin's site, the Rino's are no longer noted as having voice scramblers. Also, when you view the model comparison, the voice scrambler line says "NA".

I haven't seen any articles about this yet. Hopefully they won't be losing this feature.

This is also something to keep in mind if you are planning on flash-upgrading your existing Rino.

Greg

Okay, I found an FCC proposal dated June 2010 that proposes some changes to various personal radio services, including FRS and GMRS.

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily ... -106A1.pdf

The FCC has jurisdiction in the US only, but since our radios are designed by US companies, the proposed changes will affect us as well.

Again, if you're planning on flash-upgrading your Rino, be aware that if these proposed changes pass in the USA, your Rino may lose some functionality if Garmin incorporates the new rules into their software "ugrade".

On page 8 you will find the proposal to prohibit voice scrambling on the FRS and GMRS.

On page 13, they propose limiting the RF power output of portable GMRS devices to 2w from the current 5w. This will significantly reduce usable range.

On page 15, they propose changing the GMRS to narrow-band emissions, thereby reducing compatibility between current GMRS radios and future GMRS radios. I suspect that a flash upgrade will not affect emissions bandwidth in our current Rinos as it would require a hardware change.

Page 51 contains a notice that new GMRS radio designs received after the date the proposed rules come into force must incorporate narrowbanding to receive type-approval. This means that future GMRS radios will not be totally compatible with existing GMRS radios.

(The FCC is the US Federal Communications Commision, the gov't body responsible for everything concerned with radios. The Canadian equivalent is Industry Canada.)

Greg