Monday morning Chris and had an appointment with the FCC monitoring chief in Columbia, Maryland. I had been invited to see the facility on several occasions, but due to time constraints, that had not been possible. As the only thing on my agenda for Monday was the donor reception that night, this was a perfect opportunity to do the tour. First let me mention that a tour of the monitoring facility is something that they usually do not do, and it was mentioned that I should not mention it too much as it might give hams the feeling that they do it all the time. They don 't. So, Chris and I was privileged in getting this invitation. This is a secure area and in the main operations room, very secure. Chris and I were told, that if a situation came up, we might have to leave. As it turned out, after we were in for about 10 minutes, an alarm went off, and we were immediately escorted out of the operations room and into another area. What we did see, and get a demonstration on, is how the system works and both of us were very impressed. All they need for a plot, anywhere in North America is about 400 milliseconds to get a fix within 20 miles and that number can be refined the longer they do the plot. You may think that then they should be doing more in the amateur radio bands, but we learned that they do work for other agencies and other governments as well. That takes priority. That is about it, but to say the least, Chris and I were both duly impressed. The donor dinner went well, but the weather did not cooperate as it began to thunderstorm about 6:45 and I think that kept some away, but Congressman Mike Ross, D-AR did show up and gave a very good talk about his amateur radio experiences and gave us a good report on how he feels about AR. It was very positive. Tuesday morning I was to have had a meeting with Julie Knap of OET, but due to a family emergency, it was canceled. So, John Chwat and I had breakfast and spent 2 hours talking about the points made in group "A" on Sunday at the St.Louis meeting. I have asked him to come up with a plan to present to you about how to see your representatives in the home offices. I will be a "how to" type of document and I think it will be helpful in our congressional promotions. Later this morning, Mary, Debbie and I met with both John and Derek and covered areas that we might explore for grants. Of course education and communications training were high on the list. I intend to call my friend over at HHS and see if he can help in getting some type of funding for a HASMAT course. You never know unless you ask. In the morning, Chris and I have a meeting scheduled with the Wireless bureau to make sure we are on the same page with them and the time line that you all and Joel discussed on Saturday night. We want to also see if we can see which way the wind is blowing on BPL if we can set something up with the OET. We have learned that the BPL folks have set up a Congressional Staff briefing for later this month. We will have a "spy" there, but this shows that they are pulling out all the stops. Dave, Chris and I talked last night about this and decided it is time to set up an in person meeting over at the NAB meeting room with those who we have talked to, and have an interest as we do, on the interference issue. More on that as we get it put together. Jim Haynie