Bluetooth Headsets+Drive Teams=?legality?

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by eshteyn

Even if the radios are of the amateur radio service and work at a much higher frequency than the robot radios?

Standard disclaimer applies that all discussion here is based on the rules as they existed in 2006 and prior, which may change this year (though I'd say it's unlikely)...

The rule was as stated above. There were no exceptions mentioned. If it was a two-way radio then it was not allowed, plain and simple.

Now, to provide a little reasoning to that, even if you're using a radio that operates at a different frequency it can still cause interference. All radio transmitters create "harmonics" which are signals at frequencies other than the intended transmit frequency. For example, if you were using a UHF radio around 450MHz, the first harmonic would be right around the frequency in use by our FIRST robots (900MHz). Depending on the power output and quality of the radio, this could easily be enough to cause interference with the radios in use on the robots. The radios we're using are only outputting signals in the milliwatt range, so even a 5W handheld could easily dominate them.

Further, from an administrative point of view, I'm sure FIRST does not want to burden volunteers with having to inspect a two-way radio to ensure that it will not interfere. It's easier to just make a blanket rule disallowing any of them and then the volunteers don't have to understand which frequencies are OK and which aren't, they can simply ask anyone using a radio to stop.