Andy, et al, I will add just one thought to Henry's recommendation. This is that one of the best things we can do to assist Chwat is to alert them to problems they will face when they walk into a Congressman's office. Being alerted to erroneous beliefs (such as BPL is the coming wonder for people living in the boondocks) held by Congressmen or adverse attitudes (ham radio is nothing), is the best way Chwat can be properly armed to provide proper educational information. My sense is that it is equally as important that we provide Chwat with negative feedback we receive from Congress as it is that we write or make visits to local offices when we are requested to do this. Hang in there. Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: k8je@arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142 ARRL - The Reason Amateur Radio Is! Members - The Reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Henry R. Leggette [mailto:wd4q@bellsouth.net] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:18 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15722] Re: RE: RE: Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act Hi Andy, Don't give up on him, give him an education. It may take a period of time and he will come around. 73, Henry - WD4Q ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Oppel" <andy@andyoppel.com> To: "arrl-odv" <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 8:59 PM Subject: [arrl-odv:15720] Re:RE: RE: Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act

Greetings,

I wrote to my representative, Fortney (Pete) Stark (D, CA) last year and got a very disappointing response (see attached). Basically he believes that BPL has been studied, won't cause any interference, and that the FCC would never do anything to harm amateur radio. I tried to open up the issue at one of his town meetings, but he stonewalled me. He's not a bad guy, but his background is banking, so he just doesn't get technology. He's much more devoted to issues such as health care and Social Security. And not being into teaching pigs to fly, I have given up on him. I can't help but wonder how many other representatives either don't understand the technology well enough to take a side or inherently trust the FCC to do the right thing?

-- Andy Oppel, N6AJO

At 06:20 PM 6/25/2007, Joel Harrison wrote:

...

Frank,

Since January we have been working specific, key congressional representatives in support of HR462. This has resulted in several directors being contacted directly for letters from specific congressional districts which has occurred and has been very successful to date.

My email of May 22 for each director and vice director to write a letter to their own representatives, as well as to have the grassroots program begin letters to their specific representative was for co-sponsors to HR462. While we do want to generate as many co-sponsors as possible, that will not ensure passage of the bill. Working key committee representatives, as we have been doing since January, will, just as we did and were successful with last year during the previous Congress when the House of Representatives passed our bill.

If my previous email was not informative enough, I will gladly clarify it, however I have not heard from anyone along those lines, only responses from the directors who have acted on it so far.

73 Joel W5ZN

-----Original Message----- From: Frank Fallon [mailto:n2ff@optonline.net] Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 11:09 AM To: arrl-odv Cc: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15687] Re: RE: Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act

Joel and Dave,

This is great news. Congratulations to the team!

I hope that we will shortly have a web story up and a link to letters before Field Day. Many Directors and SM's will be meeting a lot of our members that weekend and it is good opportunity to push our members into action so that they will contact their congressional representatives and senators over the July 4th recess and get more cosponsors.

Please remember that our grassroots program/network will not function as designed unless we keep those key members informed. By my count they have had only one message this year and that was Joel's May 22nd "Action Plan" message.

We need a point person at HQ to push this effort!

73 de Frank...N2FF.....

Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ wrote:

...

The number is S.1629. Dave HB9/K1ZZ

---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- *From:* Joel Harrison [mailto:w5zn@arrl.org] *Sent:* Thu 6/14/2007 9:44 PM *To:* arrl-odv *Subject:* FW: Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act

I'm very pleased to report to you that we now have a Senate version of HR462!

The bill number will be available shortly.

Senator Mark Pryor (Arkansas) filed the bill today. This is successful completion of an effort that has been ongoing for a little over two months that has involved the activity of a variety of people. Another important fact is that Entergy, the major utility in Arkansas and many parts of the U.S. operates a BPL system to collect electric usage data (no subscriber base) and has been very cooperative with radio amateurs from the very beginning about preventing interference to amateur radio stations and actually bought off and supports the language of the bill.

More later.

73 Joel W5ZN

---------------------------------------------------------------------- --

*From:* John Chwat [mailto:john.chwat@chwatco.com] *Sent:* Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:18 PM *To:* w5zn@arrl.org; 'Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ'; cimlay@arrl.org *Cc:* 'Janet Worthington' *Subject:* FW: Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act

Congratulations to all-we now have a House AND Senate bill-we will get a Senate bill number tomorrow to forward---we have offered to draft a Dear Colleague for Sen.Pryor's staff. We will begin our networking (Director's too) for Senate Cosponsors once we get a bill number and get a Dear Colleague back..

John

---------------------------------------------------------------------- --

*From:* Glaze, Terri (Pryor) [mailto:Terri_Glaze@pryor.senate.gov] *Sent:* Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:55 PM *To:* Janet Worthington *Cc:* john.chwat@chwatco.com *Subject:* Emergency Amateur Radio Interference Act

The bill was filed today!

Andy Oppel andy@andyoppel.com andy_oppel@alamedanet.net