Legal by architecture,not by promise.
Hearthwave is a remote control point for one GMRS station you own and license — a keyboard, screen, and speaker for the radio in your house. The FCC explicitly permits that. What it prohibits — internet-linked repeaters, phone patches, retransmission between stations — Hearthwave cannot do, because the code to do it does not exist. This page walks through the rules and shows exactly how the design maps onto them.
It's remote control — expressly permitted
The rules state that GMRS base stations "may be operated by remote control," and may be connected to "the public switched network or other networks for the sole purpose of operation by remote control." Your browser is the control point; the station is the radio.
You control who reaches the hub
Accounts — and the device tokens a wall display joins with — exist only if the admin (the licensee) creates them, and can be revoked at any time. Passwords, session tokens, a transmit-blocking listen-only mode, and a per-user audit log keep station access inside the household your license covers.
No internet repeater linking
What the FCC actually prohibits is using a network to link stations and extend radio range. Hearthwave has no linking, no repeater bridge, no voice-over-IP interconnect — received audio becomes text on your screen and never touches another transmitter.
One station. One radio. One control link.
Hearthwave never generates a radio signal. It synthesizes speech through a sound card wired to your own Part 95E–certified radio and keys the push-to-talk line — the same thing a microphone and a finger do, reachable from a browser. Everything on the network side is control traffic for that one station: typed text in, transcribed text out.
typed text
PTT keying · audit log
wired, local
does all RF, analog FM voice
identified with your callsign
The path that does not exist: radio → internet → another radio. There is no code in Hearthwave that carries received audio to another transmitter, another repeater, another Hearthwave instance, or a telephone. Incoming transmissions become text on a screen — a family message log — and stop there.
A kitchen tablet and a switch stay inside the license.
Since this page was first written, Hearthwave grew a wall-display kiosk and a set of assistive input paths. Each is a new way to reach the transmitter — so each is gated the same way the rest of the station is: scoped, logged, and self-identifying.
The wall display is a scoped device, not a login
A kitchen tablet joins through a device token the licensee creates and can revoke — never an open or password-less account. Its identity class can send exactly two things: an "I'm OK" tap and a message from the admin-curated quick-message list. Freeform transmit is not in its vocabulary. Having no operator identity, it identifies on air with the station's own call sign and name.
Safety broadcasts self-identify
Street alerts, incident reports, and "I'm OK" status all key the radio, so every one of them ends with the station call sign and name automatically. Street alerts are coordinator-gated; a listen-only account skips the transmit leg entirely and simply sees the message on screen.
Assistive access without opening the mic
Switch scanning and symbol (AAC) grids let more of the household operate the station. A child's account can only put its stored button vocabulary on the air — the text is rebuilt on the server, so a button press is the only thing that can transmit, never an arbitrary call sign. Every send is still one deliberate action, and the licensee stays responsible for a minor's operation.
What Part 95E actually says.
These are the operative sections, quoted from the Code of Federal Regulations (2025 edition, via GPO). Read them yourself — the sources are linked under each quote.
"Notwithstanding the prohibition in § 95.345, GMRS repeater, base and fixed stations may be operated by remote control."
What it means here: the general Personal Radio Services ban on remote control is expressly lifted for GMRS base stations. Operating your base station from a browser instead of the front-panel microphone is the permitted case, not an edge case.
Read § 95.1745 on eCFR →"Operation of a GMRS station with a telephone connection is prohibited, as in § 95.349. GMRS repeater, base and fixed stations, however, may be connected to the public switched network or other networks for the sole purpose of operation by remote control pursuant to § 95.1745."
What it means here: a network — including an IP network — may sit between the operator and the station, so long as it exists to operate that station and not to patch calls or carry traffic between stations. Hearthwave's network side is exactly and only that: the operator's control link. There is no telephone interconnection of any kind.
Read § 95.1749 on eCFR →"(a) In addition to the prohibited uses outlined in § 95.333 of this chapter, GMRS stations must not communicate: … (8) Messages which are both conveyed by a wireline control link and transmitted by a GMRS station; (9) Messages (except emergency messages) to any station in the Amateur Radio Service, to any unauthorized station, or to any foreign station; (10) Continuous or uninterrupted transmissions, except for communications involving the immediate safety of life or property; …"
"(b) GMRS stations must not be used for one-way communications other than those listed in § 95.1731(b). Initial transmissions to establish two-way communications and data transmissions listed in § 95.1731(d) are not considered to be one-way communications for the purposes of this section."
What it means here — read honestly: paragraph (a)(8) is the linking rule. The FCC's published guidance applies it to using a network to carry traffic between stations — linking repeaters over the internet so a distant transmitter retransmits your message and extends your range. That is what the FCC has said violates §§ 95.1733(a)(8) and 95.1749. It has to be read alongside §§ 95.1745/95.1749, which in the same subpart expressly allow the operator's own control connection to the station — otherwise remote control would be permitted and impossible at the same time. Hearthwave sits squarely on the permitted side: one licensee's control link to one station, with no second station, no retransmission, and no range extension anywhere in the system. Paragraph (a)(9) is why a GMRS transmission here is always addressed to your own household's stations; the optional mesh bridge sends its copy on a separate unlicensed radio, not over GMRS. Paragraph (a)(10) is enforced in code by a hard transmit-duration watchdog that forcibly unkeys the radio.
Read § 95.1733 on eCFR →"Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions … (2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. (b) The call sign must be transmitted using voice in the English language or international Morse code telegraphy using an audible tone."
What it means here: Hearthwave doesn't leave identification to memory. Every outgoing message is framed with the station callsign in spoken English, and a timer enforces the 15-minute rule automatically whenever the station has been transmitting.
Read § 95.1751 on eCFR →"Any individual who holds an individual license may allow his or her immediate family members to operate his or her GMRS station or stations." Immediate family includes the licensee's spouse, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, parents, grandparents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. Under § 95.1743, when a minor operates the station, the licensee is solely responsible for its proper operation.
What it means here: one license covers the household — which is precisely the audience Hearthwave's account system is built to admit, and no one else. Because the licensee answers for every operator, the hub gives the licensee the controls to match: account creation is admin-only, and every transmission is logged to the user who sent it.
Read § 95.1705 on eCFR →The FCC's own GMRS guidance draws the same line this page does: networks may be used for remote control of a station, and may not be used to link repeaters so that a repeater beyond your radio's range retransmits your messages. See the FCC's GMRS page.
Every rule, answered in code.
Claims are easy; architecture is checkable. Hearthwave is open source — every row below points at behavior you can verify in the repository.
| Rule | What it requires or prohibits | How Hearthwave answers it |
|---|---|---|
| § 95.1745 § 95.1749 |
Remote control is permitted; network connections only for operating the station. | The network carries the operator's control link: typed messages in, transcripts out. Transmit audio is synthesized on the hub and played straight into the radio — it is never streamed over the network. The browser is a control surface, not a voice path. |
| § 95.1733(a)(8) | No linking — no messages carried by wireline between stations and retransmitted to extend range. | Received audio is transcribed to text and displayed; no code path retransmits received audio anywhere — not to another radio, repeater, instance, or phone. There is no RoIP, repeater, or linking module in the codebase to misconfigure. |
| § 95.1749 § 95.349 |
No telephone connection — no phone patch into GMRS. | No telephony integration exists. The hub's only outbound internet calls are read-only data lookups (NWS weather alerts, FCC license database) — nothing dials, bridges, or carries a call. |
| § 95.1751 | Station ID — spoken callsign after transmissions and every 15 minutes during a series. | Every transmission is automatically framed with the station callsign in spoken English, and an ID timer transmits the callsign whenever 15 minutes pass with the station active. Pre-formatted safety traffic — "I'm OK", incident reports, street alerts, wall-display quick messages — ends with the call sign and name too; a wall display with no operator identity IDs with the station's own license. Identification is enforced by the software, not left to habit. |
| § 95.1733(a)(10) | No continuous transmissions. | A hard transmit watchdog (tx_max_duration_seconds) force-unkeys the radio if any transmission runs too long, and a channel-busy gate holds or discards non-operator audio when someone else is talking. |
| § 95.1705(c) § 95.1743 |
Operation under your license — immediate family; licensee responsible. | No open signup: only the admin (licensee) creates accounts — and the device tokens a wall display joins with, which are equally admin-only and revocable. Salted-and-hashed passwords, expiring session tokens, login rate-limiting and lockout, and a listen-only mode that blocks transmission for guests who aren't covered by the license. A wall display is hard-scoped to two message types; a child's account can only transmit its stored button vocabulary. |
| § 95.1731 | Permissible uses — two-way plain-language voice about personal activities. | That is the entire product: family members exchanging plain spoken English on their own channel. Text-to-speech output is ordinary analog FM voice from a certified radio — no digital voice modes, no encryption, nothing hidden in the audio. |
| § 95.1733(a)(8) § 95.1747 47 CFR Part 15 |
Mesh bridge — an optional LoRa copy of outgoing traffic must not become a relay, a control path, or an unauthorized radiator. | The MeshCore and Meshtastic plugins implement the transmit hook only — there is no receive hook, so nothing heard on the radio is forwarded, and nothing arriving from the mesh can key the transmitter. The LoRa copy is a second transmission of your own message on unlicensed spectrum, so the licensee's remaining duties are Part 15 hardware duties. Both plugins ship disabled and are mutually exclusive. Full disclosure → |
| Accountability | The licensee answers for everything the station transmits. | Every transmission is written to an audit log with the account, callsign, and message text; net sessions are journaled with rosters and transcripts. If a question is ever raised, the licensee can show who transmitted what, and when. |
Automated functions, named and bounded.
A credible compliance page names its edge cases. Nearly everything Hearthwave transmits is one human action → one transmission. Four functions can key the radio on a timer or trigger instead — here is each one, what gates it, and what it asks of you. Note that Part 95E permits automatic (unattended) control only for repeater stations (§ 95.1747); a Hearthwave base station is designed to be run attended — these functions assist an operator, they don't replace one.
Automatic station ID
ALWAYS ONTransmits "This is <callsign>" when 15 minutes elapse during station activity.
- ✦Why it exists: it is § 95.1751 — the identification the rule demands, on the rule's own schedule.
- ✦Gating: only fires after the station has actually transmitted; silent stations stay silent.
Monitoring beacon
OFF BY DEFAULTOptionally announces "<callsign> Hearthwave base, monitoring." at a set interval (default 15 minutes).
- ✦Gating: disabled unless the admin turns it on; skipped whenever the channel is busy; leads with the callsign, so it also satisfies the ID rule.
- ✦Your duty: enable it only while the station is genuinely attended and monitoring — the message should be true when it airs. One-way announcements on GMRS are limited (§ 95.1733(b)); keep this as a brief availability call, which is what it is.
Net announcement (NCS)
ACTIVE NET ONLYWhile a net-control session is running, periodically announces the net and invites check-ins.
- ✦Gating: exists only while an operator has deliberately opened a net and is running it; waits for a clear channel; stops when the net closes.
- ✦Your duty: the net-control operator stays at the position for the duration of the net — the announcement is the NCS's voice, not a substitute for the NCS.
SKYWARN alert relay (NCS)
ACTIVE NET + ZONE SETDuring an active weather net, reads new National Weather Service Extreme/Severe alerts for your configured county zone over the air.
- ✦Gating: requires an operator-run net and a deliberately configured NWS zone; only the most severe alert classes air; waits for a clear channel.
- ✦Why it's defensible: emergency and safety-of-life communications are GMRS's highest-priority permitted use (§ 95.1731(a)) — and the supervising net-control operator is present the entire time it can run.
The mesh bridge sends a copy, never a relay.
Two optional example plugins — MeshCore and Meshtastic — mirror what your station says onto an unlicensed LoRa mesh, so household members out of radio range still get the message. That puts two radio services in one product, so it deserves its own accounting. Both are off by default, and only one can run at a time. The shape that keeps this simple: the mesh gets a second, independent transmission of your own outgoing message — it is never a path into your GMRS transmitter, and it never carries anyone else's traffic.
Not a network connection to the station
§ 95.349 prohibits operation "connected with the public switched network." A LoRa mesh is neither the telephone network nor your control link — your browser is that. The mesh radio is downstream of the hub: it receives a copy of an outgoing message and has no path back to key the GMRS radio. Nothing arriving from the mesh can transmit on GMRS, because no such code path exists.
A copy, not a retransmission
The linking rule is about carrying messages between stations so a distant transmitter retransmits them and extends your range. There is no second GMRS transmitter here and no range extension on GMRS: your over reaches your own GMRS stations exactly as far as your radio reaches. The LoRa copy is a separate Part 15 transmission on its own band — the mesh nodes are not recipients of your GMRS transmission, and the mesh path is not a wireline control link.
Only your own traffic leaves
The bridge is outbound only, by construction: the mesh plugins implement the transmit hook and no receive hook at all, so a transmission heard from another operator is never put on the mesh. Received traffic is transcribed to your own screens and nowhere else. That keeps the station clear of divulging the contents of radio communications it wasn't addressed with, and keeps the bridge from becoming a station-extension relay.
What the mesh side asks of you
On GMRS, the licensee is the station. On the LoRa side there is no license to hold — the duties attach to the hardware instead, under Part 15:
- ✓Use an authorized LoRa deviceAn intentional radiator needs equipment authorization (§ 15.201). Most commercial mesh boards carry a module FCC ID — check that yours does. The home-built exemption (§ 15.23) covers only devices that are not marketed, not built from a kit, and built in quantities of five or fewer for personal use.
- ✓Accept the Part 15 bargainUnlicensed operation gets no protection from interference and must not cause harmful interference; you must stop on notification (§ 15.5). A mesh is a convenience path, never the one your household's safety depends on.
- ✓Leave the radio as certifiedRun the US band plan and the power the device is certified for. Adding an amplifier or swapping in a high-gain antenna beyond the authorized configuration voids the authorization — the firmware letting you raise power is not the FCC letting you.
- ✓Keep the copy honestEverything the bridge forwards is prefixed with the sender's name and clamped to one packet. Mesh channel encryption is a LoRa-side feature and is fine there — but your GMRS transmission stays plain spoken English, because § 95.1733(a)(3) prohibits coded messages or hidden meanings on GMRS.
What the software can't do for you.
Hearthwave keeps the station inside the rules. Keeping the operation inside the rules is the licensee's job — the same job every GMRS operator has, with or without software. The short list:
- ✓Hold a GMRS licenseOne license covers your immediate family (§ 95.1705). No license, no transmitting — use listen-only accounts until yours is granted.
- ✓Use a Part 95E–certified radioHearthwave is the control point; the certified radio is the station. Don't wire it to equipment not certified for GMRS.
- ✓Keep accounts inside the licenseCreate transmit-capable accounts only for immediate family covered by your license; give everyone else listen-only. You are responsible for every operator, including minors (§ 95.1743).
- ✓Treat display devices like household keysA wall-display device token can send "I'm OK" and your quick-message list on the air. Issue one per trusted device, and revoke it if the tablet leaves the house or is lost (§ 95.1705).
- ✓Keep the hub off the public internetHearthwave ships no relay, tunnel, or port-forwarding service on purpose. Away from home, reach it over your own VPN (WireGuard/Tailscale) — the control link stays yours, exactly as § 95.1749 intends.
- ✓Stay present for automated functionsEnable the beacon only when the station is attended; run nets from the chair, not from memory.
- ✓Transmit permissible contentPlain-language personal communications (§ 95.1731). No music, ads, coded messages, or false traffic (§ 95.1733(a)) — software can frame your callsign, but what you say is on you.
Primary sources
- 47 CFR Part 95, Subpart E — General Mobile Radio Service (eCFR, current text)
- § 95.1733 as printed in the 2025 CFR (GPO, authenticated PDF)
- FCC — General Mobile Radio Service overview (licensing, permitted uses, and the Commission's guidance on network connections and repeater linking)
- 47 CFR Part 15 — Radio frequency devices (eCFR) — the unlicensed side of the mesh bridge, in particular § 15.5 (conditions of operation), § 15.23 (home-built devices), and § 15.201 (equipment authorization)
- 47 U.S.C. § 605 — Unauthorized publication or use of communications (Cornell LII) — why received traffic is never bridged anywhere
- Hearthwave source code — every claim on this page about behavior is verifiable in the repository