Joel,
Yes. I understood what Laura was saying. My obviously obscure analogy was
merely to suggest a great percent of the US population as well as a few OOs
appear to believe relatively inconsequential actions are actionable when
they may be no more than displeasing to the offended person.
Tnx,
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director
ARRL Great Lakes Division
5065 Bethany Rd.
Mason, OH 45040
E-mail: <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je(a)arrl.org, Tel.: 513-459-1661
_____
From: Joel Harrison [mailto:w5zn@arrl.org]
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 10:01 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Washington Update
Jim,
I don't think the FCC is going to ignore the Court. We may not like their
response, but I just don't see them ignoring them. The downside is anyone's
guess at this point and is really just speculation that could range from
"nothing" all the way to uncontrollable and unenforceable BPL rules but
again, that is just speculation and you cannot make such a determination at
this point. It is still a work in progress.
Regarding the OO's, we're not talking about law suits against the OO's. That
is NOT what Laura was referring to. It is not what might be actionable
toward an OO, but what is actually a Part 97 rules violation that would be
actionable by the Commission. For example, two hams or two ham groups in a
dispute over who has a "right" to a particular frequency is clearly not. The
Commission's position is, in accordance with the rules, that no one does.
To quote Laura, "Boys and girls, there are only so many toys on the play
ground......you have to share!!!"
However, malicious interference, not operating in according with your
license, etc., is and that is what the Commission considers a violation that
they can take action on and what they want the OO's to bring to the FCC and
not things like "territorial disputes".
73 Joel W5ZN
_____
From: K8JE [mailto:K8JE@ARRL.org]
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 5:37 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Washington Update
Joel, thanks for the report. Two things come to mind:
What is the downside to Amateur Radio if the FCC fails to respond to the
Fed. Court ruling in our lawsuit?
I'm not particularly surprised that a few OOs may not understand what
conduct is actionable by the FCC. It seems that these estimated few share
the affliction with at least half of the population. One can sue nearly
anyone for anything at any time, but successfully receiving recovery in the
suit is a different story.
73,
Jim
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director
ARRL Great Lakes Division
5065 Bethany Rd.
Mason, OH 45040
E-mail: <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je(a)arrl.org, Tel.: 513-459-1661
_____
From: Joel Harrison [mailto:w5zn@arrl.org]
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 5:56 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: Washington Update
As you recall I recently traveled to Washington for the purpose of meeting
with the FCC and also to update and evaluate the status of our effort on the
Hill concerning our legislative objectives for the 110th Congress..
In a nutshell, neither Dave or I have been pleased with the progress that
has been made since our board meeting with Representative Sheila
Jackson-Lee's office in introducing our antenna bill. I had planned to visit
Jackson-Lee's office during my trip, however my departing flight was
severely delayed due to weather which, in turn, produced a late arrival in
D.C. just in time to make a scheduled FCC meeting, so the meeting with
Jackson-Lee will be rescheduled. Since this time Dave and I have had
numerous discussions with John Chwat and the result has been a refocused
effort on the Hill. Recent work has already been reported to you by Dave and
our latest word is that the bill will be dropped this coming week. Once that
is done, Dave and Dan Henderson will be working with you and your DLAC's to
further advance the bill.
A very important part of this activity is that the sponsor as well as some
of the original co-sponsors that have signed on this past week are members
of the Homeland Security Committee which will give a really good profile to
the bill. I refer to the bill as our "antenna bill", but just to make sure
we're all on the same page the actual name of the bill will be "Amateur
Radio Emergency Communications Enhancement Act of 2009".
So, we expect some very good news in the next couple of days and will
immediately publicize the bill as soon as it is dropped.
Our visit to the FCC, unfortunately, went as we assumed it would. Chris had
arranged a meeting with Julius Knapp, Chief of the FCC's Office of
Engineering & Technology (OET) for the purpose of reviewing progress on the
FCC's action to address the U.S. Court of Appeals remand in our BPL case.
Julie is a very cordial and pleasant person to meet with, however progress
in the areas we deal with them on has been non-existent. This isn't
necessarily his fault, but a reflection of the immediate past environment at
the FCC.
As usual, there was a "team" from OET in the meeting but this group was
larger than usual with Julie having an additional nine OET staffers in the
meeting. Chris and I jokingly commented that they must think we're a couple
of real dangerous guys given there were 10 of them and 2 of us! The "extras"
don't actually add anything to the meeting, rather just usually "nod" in
agreement with Julie when he makes a pronouncement! After discussion with
the EC at our last meeting, we were instructed that if there was no action
on the part of the FCC in the matter of the Court's BPL remand, Chris and I
were to put them on notice that we would submit a Freedom of Information Act
filing to obtain the material the FCC redacted from their Court filing that
the Court ordered them to produce, and also to file a Petition for a Writ of
Mandamus with the Court.
What we were told is exactly what we expected....."Yes, we know it has been
a long time since the Court's order and we understand your concern but we
want you to understand we're not just sitting on this, it is in the
process". Our response was as noted above to which they acknowledged and
noted they expected that. After a brief discussion of a couple of other
unrelated matters of no significance the meeting ended and we departed.
Dave and I instructed Chris to file the Freedom of Information request,
which he did, and the deadline for a response is Tuesday, April 28. We
expect to file the Petition for a Writ of Mandamus after that for a couple
of reasons. One, if the FCC doesn't respond to our FOI request then that
will add to our petition with the court. If they do respond, there may be
some information in the response that could prove useful in our petition.
April 25 was the one year anniversary of the Court's ruling.
So, we'll see what happens Tuesday. The Petition for a Writ of Mandamus is
something that Chris is very capable of handling and it will not require the
services of Wilmer Hale. It will not require an appearance before the court,
rather just a filing with the Court Clerk.
The following day Chris and I traveled to the FCC office in Gettysburg, PA
for a meeting with Laura Smith. The purpose of the meeting was simply a
cordial arrangement for the ARRL President and the FCC Special Counsel to
meet. The meeting was scheduled for one hour, and quite frankly on the drive
up Chris and I expected the meeting might be over in 15 minutes. Once we
actually sat down in Laura's office and began to chat I became not only
pleasantly surprised at Laura's professionalism but extremely impressed with
her knowledge of Amateur Radio, her history of amateur enforcement prior to
and during Riley's tenure and her grasp on the outstanding enforcement cases
that needed to be addressed. Laura told us there were about 400 outstanding
issues that she inherited when she assumed the job. These had accumulated
during the vacant period post Riley - pre Laura, and she said there were
about 50 that had been logged since she took over.
Make no mistake about this - the fact that Laura does not have an Amateur
Radio license in no way effects her ability to perform her job. During our
conversation it became readily apparent to me that she knows more about
amateur radio than half the people who do have a license! She is extremely
knowledgeable in spectrum and frequency allocation, she understands the
modes we use, amateur repeaters and you name it, she has a handle on it. So,
my advice to her for a response to the next person that made a snide remark
about her not having a license (to which she has already received a few!)
was to simply tell the person "Yes, that is correct. I do not have an
amateur radio license.......but I can take yours away if you cross the
line!!" She liked that.
One topic that we discussed was the Amateur Auxiliary and the OO program.
Laura noted that she had already received the assistance of the AA and was
extremely commendable of the program. I noted that it had been sometime
since we last reviewed the program and that now would be a good time to do
so. She noted that one area that could use some OO training emphasis is what
type of activity is actionable as opposed to what is not. She said there
seems to be a small lack of understanding among some of the OO's, that not
being a negative thing in itself just something she felt could use some
additional emphasis. Laura agreed to assist us and work with us in any
effort we may pursue in this area.
Our meeting ended after about an hour and ten minutes.....pleasantly well
beyond the 15 or so that we feared my occur and frankly we could have spent
at least another hour discussing numerous topics related to the Amateur
Radio Service. In this area, the relationship between ARRL and the FCC
continues to be very strong and productive.
Following our meeting, Chris and I had lunch with Riley Hollingsworth. There
was no particular agenda, rather an invitation was extended given we were in
town. This was the first time I had the opportunity to visit with Riley
since his retirement and the first time I had the opportunity to buy his
lunch since he was no longer a government employee! It was a pleasure for me
to do so. During the lunch I mentioned to Riley my thinking that it was time
to conduct a review of the Amateur Auxiliary. Riley agreed with the timing,
again not that there is any particular issue to address but rather a timely
review to update the program if needed. I told Riley I envisioned this being
an Ad-hoc Committee consisting of some form of Board or Standing Committee
members, but wanted to know if he would be interested in serving as a
member. He gladly agreed to do so if we moved forward, or offered to assist
ARRL in any way possible. I might add that Director Edgar has appointed
Riley an Assistant Director of the Atlantic Division (where Riley resides,
of course!)
I'll be happy to address any questions you may have concerning this trip.
73 Joel W5ZN
