> ...importers and marketers should ensure that [two-way radios] are properly certified and labeled as FCC-compliant and cannot be easily modified to operate outside its grant of certification.
So if you use an SDR for LoRa, you have to make it hard for users to modify the code to emit a different frequency.
[1]: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-18-980A1.pdf
> If you use an SDR, you'd have to lock it down with DRM to prevent end users from repurposing it.
Not any more so than a product you designed that didn't use an SDR as its core.
That doesn't have anything to do with LimeSDR. This is already not a product that is certified for anything. It exists in a very gray zone where anyone using it for transmission is likely in violation of the law unless they obtained a development/testing license in the specific band they are using.
Or they just have a ham radio license
In other words: cheap walkie-talkies that don't comply with FCC regulations.
Such radios typically max out at 5w.
The LimeSDR claims 10dBm - which I believe means about 10milliwatts.
In other words, that FCC memo is concerned with radios being sold that are something like five hundred times as powerful as a LimeSDR. And therefore much more likely to interfere with other transmissions.
I thought it was more along the lines of going after Baofengs, not CB radios, hence the calling out of VHF/UHF radios specifically.
You can transmit in the ISM bands without a license. There are still power restrictions which most SDRs won't exceed anyways.
For a hobbyist experimenting with an SDR, this wouldn't apply.