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
E-mail: k8je@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:
As you recall I recently traveled to
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
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