Rick, I believe I heard you mumble something about the FCC once or twice, but it was always under your breath and what I heard was somewhat vague. Would you care to clarify your opinion? Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je@arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: K5ur@aol.com [mailto:K5ur@aol.com] Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 12:18 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:10874] Re:  Re: Meetings at FCC on BPL Did I ever tell ya what I think of the FCC? 73, K5UR In a message dated 7/9/2004 3:25:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time, W3KD@aol.com writes:

I think Dave covered that report very well. I was most distressed that, after the OET folks invited themselves to the meeting, and one of them showed up, he was ushered into the hallway by Bruce Franca, Deputy OET Chief, who is these days the OET "hatchetman", and only Bruce returned to the meeting. Anh Wride was apparently told not to show up either. Bruce was atypically argumentative, and said that the problem with automatic shutdowns of BPL systems was that the allegation of interference was not necessarily one of harmful interference, and each case will require an investigation and a determination of how bad it "really" is.

We snapped back that if the FCC was going to let BPL systems decide for

themselves what constitutes harmful interference, no BPL system will ever shut down, and the Amateurs will simply have to suffer the inability to communicate. Furthermore, the Enforcement Bureau will not have an  objective standard to use to determine when the rules are being violated.

It is apparent that (1) there will, as we have predicted, be no remedy available from the Enforcement Bureau for BPL interference cases, and (2) the policy wonks at FCC won't want to acknowledge interference when it appears, because that will show their decision to allow BPL to be ill-conceived.

This is a disastrous combination.

Chris