I don't think we're being inconsistent. We did call out the troops in April. That was in response to a specific provocation by the President and had a short fuse. We got a good response: lots of thoughtful letters that don't bear the telltale signs of a form-letter campaign. That got us into the White House for a meeting and an apparent commitment that the NTIA's results would not be ignored. The dilemma when deciding whether to ask members to write Congress is, what should they ask their representatives to do? While the FCC proceeding was open, the Hill staff's handling of a BPL letter was utterly predictable: they'd put a buck slip on the letter, ship it over to the FCC, the FCC would generate the form letter response about the proceeding being open, staff would ship the FCC's form letter out to the constituent, and that would be that. Mr. Bush's April speech gave us something to focus on other than the FCC proceeding. But BPL was still not a legislative issue. Now we're trying to make it a legislative issue -- to delay FCC action until the FCC has conducted a comprehensive study of the interference issue -- but our focus is on meetings with key people, not letter-bombing the entire Congress. Dave K1ZZ -----Original Message----- From: Kay Craigie [mailto:n3kn@comcast.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:28 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:10927] Re: Minutes The response to Tom's question leaves me more confused than he probably was when he asked it. Tom has been operating on guidance indicating that we are not supposed to be calling out the troops to carpet-bomb the Congress with messages on this issue. I'm having difficult making the guidance he received square up with ODV:10519, which involved a grass-roots BPL package posted on the Web site and sent to the SM's, which clearly calls on people to write. I also can't get it to align with our ARRLWeb story dated April 27 which said, in part, "It is important for radio amateurs to get the facts across to the White House as well as to our Congressional representatives and senators." The ARRL Web site provides an information package explaining how members can contact the White House and members of Congress to express their views on BPL deployment and why they need to do so. "Do it now!" Sumner urges in his call to arms. "We need thousands of responses from all parts of the country, right away, if we are to make an impression." Did I goof when I wrote Bush, Cheney, my Senators, and my Congressman? If so, a lot of locals around here goofed also, thinking they were following the advice of the ARRL. What we s'posed to do? 73 - Kay N3KN