While all of this may sound very silly, there are very good reasons why this is regulated here in the US. To put it at it's base level, airwaves are at a premium in this country. The bandwidth that we use is regulated and restricted for our use, and our use only. This of course is a good thing because we don't want our expensive planes crashing because somebody used a garage door opener. Right??? Well, the FCC does this same thing for other frequencies too. In fact, within the bandwidth we use are other frequencies that are used by other things in this country. For instance, anybody that has every flown in a town that has a television station on channel 4 knows that the RC channel 20 is usually not usable. This is because of bleed over (not always, but sometimes) from the television station. When the crystal in a radio is changed the repair facility has to ensure the the radio is indeed broadcasting on the proper frequency and within set power output standards. If they are not the repair facility makes the adjustments. Now, what happens when somebody decides to change their own frequencies?? Worst case scenario here, but still very very plausible. Let's so "Joe Nobody" changes his transmitter from channel 60 to channel 20, and the output power is off and he is now interfering with "W-something or another" channel 4 television station's broadcast. They call the FCC to report the interference. FCC comes out with a spectrum analyser and scans for the interference. They find "Joe Nobody" flying his $100 ARF at the local field. FCC shuts down the field for starters, and to ensure that this doesn't happen any longer they revoke the frequencies we use and sell them to somebody else.

Ok, sound silly? Maybe a little far fetched, but still possible. There are a lot of people that would love to get the frequencies that we use for our RC planes. The FCC has set those aside for us to use, but they put these rules on their use in ensure that we don't interfere with people using other close frequencies for commercial use. I for one appreciate the fact that we have these frequencies set aside for us and I'm more than happy to follow these rules for their use.

Hope this helps clear it up.

Ken