[CoARES-D10] APRS for non-amateur use

[Michael T. Haynie]

Greetings all,
I was wondering if the APRS system is solely designated for amateur use.
Obviously operating on 145.390 is illegal for non-amateurs, but is the
protocol itself governed by Part 97? There seem to be a million uses for
position reporting over VHF outside of the amateur bands for emergency
services (wildland fire in particular). For volunteer departments, the
commercial versions are too expensive to even be practical. Thus, having
APRS on a mic-e or tiny trak system for personal accountability or real-time
incident mapping would be extremely useful. Anyone have any thoughts on the
legality of using this type of technology on non-ham bands?


Thanks in advance,
Michael Haynie
KC0EXP