§ 90.203   Certification required.

   (a) Except as specified in paragraphs (b) and (l) of this section, each
   transmitter utilized for operation under this part and each transmitter
   marketed as set forth in § 2.803 of this chapter must be of a type which has
   been certificated for use under this part.

   (1)  Effective  October 16, 2002, except in the 1427-1432 MHz band, an
   equipment  approval  may no longer be obtained for in-hospital medical
   telemetry  equipment  operating under the provisions of this part. The
   requirements for obtaining an approval for medical telemetry equipment after
   this date are found in subpart H of part 95 of this chapter.

   (2) Any manufacturer of radio transmitting equipment (including signal
   boosters) to be used in these services may request certification for such
   equipment following the procedures set forth in subpart J of part 2 of this
   chapter. Certification for an individual transmitter or signal booster also
   may be requested by an applicant for a station authorization by following
   the  procedure  set forth in part 2 of this chapter. Such equipment if
   approved will be individually enumerated on the station authorization.

   (b) Certification is not required for the following:

   (1) [Reserved]

   (2) Transmitters used for police zone and interzone stations authorized as
   of January 1, 1965.

   (3) Transmitting equipment used in the band 1427-1435 MHz.

   (4) Transmitters used in radiolocation stations in accordance with subpart F
   authorized  prior  to  January  1,  1974,  for  public safety and land
   transportation applications (old parts 89 and 93).

   (5) Transmitters used in radiolocation stations in accordance with subpart F
   authorized for industrial applications (old part 91) prior to January 1,
   1978.

   (6) [Reserved]

   (7) Transmitters imported and marketed prior to September 1, 1996 for use by
   LMS systems.

   (c)  Radiolocation  transmitters  for  use  in  public safety and land
   transportation applications marketed prior to January 1, 1974, must meet the
   applicable technical standards in this part, pursuant to § 2.803 of this
   chapter.

   (d)  Radiolocation  transmitters  for  use  in  public safety and land
   transportation applications marketed after January 1, 1974, must comply with
   the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section.

   (e)  Except as provided in paragraph (g) of this section, transmitters
   designed to operate above 25 MHz shall not be certificated for use under
   this part if the operator can program and transmit on frequencies, other
   than those programmed by the manufacturer, service or maintenance personnel,
   using the equipment's external operation controls.

   (f)  Except as provided in paragraph (g) of this section, transmitters
   designed to operate above 25 MHz that have been approved prior to January
   15, 1988, and that permit the operator, by using external controls, to
   program the transmitter's operating frequencies, shall not be manufactured
   in, or imported into the United States after March 15, 1988. Marketing of
   these transmitters shall not be permitted after March 15, 1989.

   (g)  Transmitters having frequency programming capability and that are
   designed to operate above 25 MHz are exempt from paragraphs (e) and (f) of
   this section if the design of such transmitters:

   (1) Is such that transmitters with external controls normally available to
   the operator must be internally modified to place the equipment in the
   programmable mode. Further, while in the programmable mode, the equipment
   shall  not  be  capable of transmitting. The procedures for making the
   modification and altering the frequency program shall not be made available
   with the operating information normally supplied to the end user of the
   equipment; or

   (2)  Requires  the tramsitter to be programmed for frequencies through
   controls normally inaccessible to the operator; or

   (3) Requires equipment to be programmed for frequencies through use of
   external devices or specifically programmed modules made available only to
   service/maintenance personnel; or

   (4) Requires equipment to be programmed through cloning (copying a program
   directly  from  another transmitter) using devices and procedures made
   available only to service/maintenance personnel.

   (h) The requirements of paragraphs (e), (f), and (g) of this section shall
   not apply if:

   (1)  The equipment has been designed and manufactured specifically for
   aircraft use; and

   (2) The part 90 certification limits the use of the equipment to operations
   only under § 90.423.

   (i) Equipment certificated after February 16, 1988 and marketed for public
   safety operation in the 806-809/851-854 MHz bands must have the capability
   to be programmed for operation on the mutual aid channels as designated in
   § 90.617(a)(1) of the rules.

   (j) Except where otherwise specially provided for, transmitters operating on
   frequencies in the 150-174 MHz and 406-512 MHz bands must comply with the
   following:

   (1) Applications for certification received on or after January 1, 2005, for
   mobile and portable transmitters designed to transmit voice on public safety
   frequencies  in  the  150-174  MHz  band  will  be granted only if the
   mobile/portable equipment is capable of operating on the nationwide public
   safety  interoperability calling channel in the 150-174 MHz band. (See
   § 90.20(c), (d) of this part.) Applications for certification received on or
   after January 1, 2005, for mobile and portable transmitters designed to
   transmit voice on public safety frequencies in the 450-470 MHz band will be
   granted only if the mobile/portable equipment is capable of operating on the
   nationwide public safety interoperability calling channel in the 450-470 MHz
   band. (See § 90.20(c), (d) of this part.)

   (2) Applications for certification received on or after February 14, 1997
   but before January 1, 2005 will only be granted for equipment with the
   following channel bandwidths:

   (i) 12.5 kHz or less for single bandwidth mode equipment or multi-bandwidth
   mode equipment with a maximum channel bandwidth of 12.5 kHz;

   (ii)  25 kHz for multi-bandwidth mode equipment with a maximum channel
   bandwidth of 25 kHz if it is capable of operating on channels of 12.5 kHz or
   less; and

   (iii) 25 kHz if the equipment meets the efficiency standard of paragraph
   (j)(3) of this section.

   (3) Applications for part 90 certification of transmitters designed to
   operate on frequencies in the 150.8-162.0125 MHz, 173.2-173.4 MHz, and/or
   421-512 MHz bands, received on or after February 14, 1997 must include a
   certification that the equipment meets a spectrum efficiency standard of one
   voice  channel per 12.5 kHz of channel bandwidth. Additionally, if the
   equipment is capable of transmitting data, has transmitter output power
   greater than 500 mW, and has a channel bandwidth of more than 6.25 kHz, the
   equipment must be capable of supporting a minimum data rate of 4800 bits per
   second per 6.25 kHz of channel bandwidth.

   (4) Applications for part 90 certification of transmitters designed to
   operate on frequencies in the 150.8-162.0125 MHz, 173.2-173.4 MHz, and/or
   421-512  MHz  bands,  received on or after January 1, 2011, except for
   hand-held transmitters with an output power of two watts or less, will only
   be granted for equipment with the following channel bandwidths:

   (i) 6.25 kHz or less for single bandwidth mode equipment;

   (ii) 12.5 kHz for multi-bandwidth mode equipment with a maximum channel
   bandwidth of 12.5 kHz if it is capable of operating on channels of 6.25 kHz
   or less;

   (iii) 25 kHz for multi-bandwidth mode equipment with a maximum channel
   bandwidth of 25 kHz if it is capable of operating on channels of 6.25 kHz or
   less; and

   (iv)  Up  to  25 kHz if the equipment meets the efficiency standard of
   paragraph (j)(5) of this section.

   (5) Applications for part 90 certification of transmitters designed to
   operate on frequencies in the 150.8-162.0125 MHz, 173.2-173.4 MHz, and/or
   421-512 MHz bands, received on or after January 1, 2011, must include a
   certification that the equipment meets a spectrum efficiency standard of one
   voice  channel per 6.25 kHz of channel bandwidth. Additionally, if the
   equipment is capable of transmitting data, has transmitter output power
   greater than 500 mW, and has a channel bandwidth of more than 6.25 kHz, the
   equipment must be capable of supporting a minimum data rate of 4800 bits per
   second per 6.25 kHz of channel bandwidth.

   (6) Modification and permissive changes to certification grants.

   (i) The Commission's Equipment Authorization Division will not allow adding
   a multi-mode or narrowband operation capability to single bandwidth mode
   transmitters, except under the following conditions:

   (A)  Transmitters  that have the inherent capability for multi-mode or
   narrowband  operation  allowed in paragraphs (j)(2) and (j)(4) of this
   section, may have their grant of certification modified (reissued) upon
   demonstrating  that  the  original  unit  complies  with the technical
   requirements for operation; and

   (B) New FCC Identifiers will be required to identify equipment that needs to
   be modified to comply with the requirements of paragraphs (j)(2) and (j)(4)
   of this section.

   (ii) All other applications for modification or permissive changes will be
   subject to the Rules of part 2 of this chapter.

   (7)  Transmitters  designed  only for one-way paging operations may be
   certificated with up to a 25 kHz bandwidth and are exempt from the spectrum
   efficiency requirements of paragraphs (j)(3) and (j)(5) of this section.

   (8) The Commission's Equipment Authorization Division may, on a case by case
   basis,  grant  certification  to equipment with slower data rates than
   specified in paragraphs (j)(3) and (j)(5) of this section, provided that a
   technical analysis is submitted with the application which describes why the
   slower data rate will provide more spectral efficiency than the standard
   data rate.

   (9) Transmitters used for stolen vehicle recovery on 173.075 MHz must comply
   with the requirements of § 90.20(e)(6).

   (10)  Except as provided in this paragraph, single-mode and multi-mode
   transmitters designed to operate in the 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz bands
   that operate with a maximum channel bandwidth greater than 12.5 kHz shall
   not be manufactured in, or imported into, the United States after January 1,
   2011, except as follows:

   (i)  To the extent that the equipment meets the efficiency standard of
   paragraph (j)(3) of this section, or

   (ii) Where operation with a bandwidth greater than 12.5 kHz is specified
   elsewhere.

   (k) For transmitters operating on frequencies in the 220-222 MHz band,
   certification will only be granted for equipment with channel bandwidths up
   to 5 kHz, except that certification will be granted for equipment operating
   on   220-222  MHz  band  Channels  1  through  160  (220.0025  through
   220.7975/221.0025 through 221.7975), 171 through 180 (220.8525 through
   220.8975/221.8525 through 221.8975), and 186 through 200 (220.9275 through
   220.9975/221.9275 through 221.9975) with channel bandwidths greater than 5
   kHz.

   (l) Ocean buoy and wildlife tracking transmitters operating in the band
   40.66-40.70 MHz or 216-220 MHz under the provisions of § 90.248 of this part
   shall be authorized under verification procedure pursuant to subpart J of
   part 2 of this chapter.

   (m) Applications for part 90 certification of transmitters designed to
   operate in in 769-775 MHz and 799-805 MHz frequency bands will only be
   granted to transmitters meeting the modulation, spectrum usage efficiency
   and channel capability requirements listed in § § 90.535, 90.547, and 90.548.

   (n) [Reserved]

   (o) Equipment certification for transmitters in the 3650-3700 MHz band. (1)
   Applications for all transmitters must describe the methodology used to meet
   the requirement that each transmitter employ a contention based protocol and
   indicate whether it is capable of avoiding co-frequency interference with
   devices using all other types of contention-based protocols (see § § 90.7,
   90.1305 and 90.1321 of this part);

   (2) Applications for mobile transmitters must identify the base stations
   with which they are designed to communicate and describe how the requirement
   to positively receive and decode an enabling signal is incorporated (see
   § 90.1333 of this part); and

   (3) Applications for systems using advanced antenna technology must provide
   the algorithm used to reduce the equivalent isotropically radiated power
   (EIRP)  to  the maximum allowed in the event of overlapping beams (see
   § 90.1321 of this part).

   (4) Applications for fixed transmitters must include a description of the
   installation instructions and guidelines for RF safety exposure requirements
   that will be included with the transmitter. (See § 90.1335).

   (p) Certification requirements for signal boosters are set forth in § 90.219.

   [ 43 FR 54791 , Nov. 22, 1978;  44 FR 32219 , June 5, 1979]

   Editorial Note: For Federal Register citations affecting § 90.203, see the
   List of CFR Sections Affected, which appears in the Finding Aids section of
   the printed volume and at www.fdsys.gov.

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