So far (mind you, it's only been a day) the reaction hasn't been negative at all. Those that have contacted me seem to think that $35 is reasonable compared to $50 and some even thanked the ARRL for vigorously fighting this. But we have to wait until this starts to spread around, and when the inevitable "teh ARRL is an ineffective waste of muh money" youtube videos and social media postings start to pop up. One thing that WILL come up is that RAY BAUM'S Act mandated the fees and we will be asked why we dropped the ball on getting exempted from application fees. I'm quite puzzled and frankly concerned that this "loophole" was used to get around the waiver of regulatory fees for amateur radio by imposing an application fee instead. Also, notice that in this R&O the FCC came straight out and said that amateur radio is not an emergency radio service. I think that this should send an important message to us that our value in emcomm is secondary to what is the core of the amateur radio service. We should be about the radio art, self-training and knowledge including training people to work in STEM careers. Emcomm will be there, but should not override and overwhelm everything we do. It's now in black and white - we are not an emergency radio service and we should not put all of our eggs in that basket. As David M and I had discussed, perhaps we could offer our premium tier members an incentive to soften the blow. Something like a fee credit toward VEC filing for renewal. Make hay, as you will. Ria N2RJ On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 12:36 PM david davidsiddall-law.com < david@davidsiddall-law.com> wrote:
All,
The FCC has adopted its decision in the licensing fees proceeding in record time. For the amateur and similar services, it lowered its proposed fee to $35.00, finding that this was reasonably based on cost. Attached is the portion of the decision that addresses amateur application fees in particular. (Please note that the paragraph and footnote numbers on the excerpt reset, the correction factor is noted in red on the first page; also, the entire 100+ page document was released by the FCC this morning without any page numbers…).
The entire documents can be viewed here:
73, Dave K3ZJ
*David R. Siddall*
*Managing Partner*
*DS Law, PLLC*
*1629 K St. NW, Ste 300*
*Washington, DC 20006*
*direct: +1 202 559 4690*
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