Chris, I agree completely. Now if the U.S. Attorney and the FCC will get out there and make a poster child of that clown in Southern California, including highly publicized jail time, it will go a long, long way. I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that it's not the severity of punishment but the certainty of punishment that is a deterrent to crime. (Or perhaps that's one of the urban legends). But it's true. For example, running traffic lights was a local sport in San Francisco. They doubled the fines not once, but twice, with no effect. They put automated cameras in and it all but stopped. Without some certainty of enforcement, the miscreants are going to turn the amateur bands into chaos. And I fear the same if we adopt a bandplan with no enforcement teeth in it. Look what has happened to repeater coordination in some parts of the country. -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO Pacific Division Vice Director At 06:27 AM 4/26/2005, W3KD@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 4/25/2005 10:40:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, K8JE@arrl.org writes:
All this suggests that any new band planning we expect FCC to adopt will need to be rather simple to enforce using only minimal staffing.
Jim, your summary of Riley's remarks is of great concern. It would appear that he has concluded that upon his retirement, there will not be anyone as dedicated to the cause as he is. As to "minimal staffing", clearly we are there. The FCC does do "split jobs" in some cases, and Riley is not spending all his time on Amateur Radio enforcement. He does land mobile enforcement also. So it is hard to imagine FCC devoting "less" resources to Amateur Radio enforcement than it does now, and there is, almost by definition, no method to make band plans self-enforcing; hence my stated concern of yesterday.
This has very little to do with the bandwidth regulation issue, I think. I view the enforcement situation as distinct, separate and much broader an issue, and something to which we should turn our attention in the very near term. Perhaps we should have Riley address the Board again, as he has done on several occasions, and strategize with him.
As Rod Stafford will attest, having been the ARRL's point person in the FCC's return to enforcement in the Amateur Service, we rely on deterrence almost exclusively. Riley has not been as "active" in doing actual enforcement as he has been visible and omnipresent. FCC in-your-face works wonders with very little resources expended. That was Richard Lee's strategy and Riley adopted it. Somehow, that concept has to continue going forward post-Riley-retirement. Otherwise, we will slump back into the dark times.
As Joel Harrison has said correctly many times, the real Godfather of Amateur Radio enforcement was Richard Lee, who is still at FCC and in need of a job. That option needs exploring.
73, Chris W3KD