Joel -- I got all worked up and forgot to say "good job" on the letter. Rod At 03:10 PM 12/18/2006, Joel Harrison wrote:

Greetings,

When all of the errors in WT Docket 04-140 became apparent with the release of the Report & Order we all wanted a piece of Bill Cross because of his blatant ignorance, arrogance or just plain stupidity….whatever it was.

It was disturbing to me that he did not take a brief moment out of his day, that I’m confident is anything but occupied with official business, and contact Chris just to run some things by him in an attempt to prevent the calamity of errors caused by the overexpansion of the 80 meter phone band.

Even so, I was willing to concede what had been done had been done and dealing with how to prevent this in the future would be a top priority for 2007.

We filed our petition for reconsideration in good faith, attempting to present the best possible resolution to the domino effect caused by the expansion.

Friday morning, Chris received a phone call from Scot Stone at FCC. I know Scot from previous meetings at FCC and quite frankly I have a lower opinion of him than I do Cross. Under the current organizational structure at FCC he is above Cross in the food chain. Cross was not at work on Thursday and Friday. Stone asked Chris what he thought about FCC moving the automatic sub-band below 3600 KHz. Chris, of course, told him that was a horrible and idea and told him why. Stone ended the conversation with “Well, I just wanted to let you know where we are headed with this”. At that point, it was obvious that WTB was going to once again make a bad situation worse.

This continued arrogance of the Wireless Bureau burned me up, so much so that it was all I had on my mind during my trip back from D.C. Saturday morning and through Sunday. It is one thing for the FCC to ignore us on the BPL issue, which is a political matter. But for the WTB to ignore ARRL on Part 97 amateur matters is just plain inexcusable!

Sunday afternoon I concluded enough was enough. It was time to let the Commissioners know exactly how bad the WTB staff screwed up this Docket regarding the 80 meter expansion and the incompetence that it exhibited subsequent to the release.

One bright spot late Friday was a phone call Chris received from a representative in Commissioner Copps office. He wanted to advise us of the pending release of WT Docket 05-235 and what was contained in it was not what the League had proposed and he wanted to discuss it. At that time Chris mentioned the earlier call from Stone and expressed his concern over the handling of our petition for reconsideration. Given the desire of Copps office to discuss this matter I felt going to the Commissioners with the WTB problems was the right thing to do.

It is a given fact that we will never change the Wireless Bureau by working directly with them. They have now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will ignore the League’s expertise in amateur radio matters. That being understood, our first course of action is to quit beating our heads against the WTB wall and start working from the top down.

Sunday afternoon I drafted a letter for Chairman Martin and each of the Commissioners. I sent it to Dave and Chris for review. After some edits we settled on a final version that has now been sent to the Chairman and each of the Commissioners.

It is attached for your info.

While this will become a public record since it is being sent to FCC, I do not plan any hoopla or news stories about it. This is just step one of an objective to turn this situation around.

73 Joel W5ZN