Those are good questions, Jim. I suppose the best possible outcome would be for AHA to reconfigure their request for an interim waiver to correspond with the Board's proposal for a permanent rule change. But Bryan Tremont doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to call us back after we made an overture to him and sent him the ARRL FCC briefing paper on the Board's proposal. He said he sent our paper over to AHA to see what response they had. But it would seem that what we are going to have to do, since the AHA temporary waiver is going to be released either next week or the week after that for comment, that we will have to simply comment on it. What we will have to do, given the Board's direction, is to advocate the Board's standards for operation by hospital employees who are hams on behalf of their employers during training, drills, etc. just as we have proposed it. To the extent that the AHA is looking for any broader relief, which is not easy to ascertain from their broadly worded waiver request, we can't support it. That doesn't mean we have to oppose it either, of course. I can't, and I have no intention of moving around Bryan Tremont to AHA. That would be most unethical for me and it would be extremely bad politics for ARRL going forward, so thanks for the offer to approach AHA via SCHA, but no thanks. I have made an overture to Bryan, and if he does not respond, that is the way it goes. We will have to file our comments on whatever PN the FCC comes up with and let it go at that; Bryan will have weighed the risk of our filing something that is negative on his temporary waiver request, and acted in his client's best interests. I am concerned that any temporary waiver grant to AHA that is broader than the Board's language for 97.113 could become the bellwether for the permanent rule change, but at the same time, we have made some pretty active overtures to FCC about this, and the responses indicate that we are on the right track. But as Rick Roderick accurately notes, you can't trust anyone at FCC not to smile in your face and stab you in the back. Especially on the 8th floor. And no one should underestimate the horsepower that Tremont has on the 8th floor, either. He is fresh out of there and has ears. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper. P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG -----Original Message----- From: James F. Boehner MD <jboehner01@yahoo.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Cc: 'arrl-odv' <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Fri, Feb 26, 2010 10:09 pm Subject: American Hospital Association waiver request Chris, What, in your opinion, would be the best outcome of your meeting with Bryan Tremont? Would it be only for the AHA to acknowledge that the ARRL BOD proposal would serve their needs, or for them to actually withdraw their proposal and support ours? Should Bryan not respond and you need another communication route with the AHA, I may be able to get you in touch with them via the SCHA. I do not think the AHA would object to our proposal; it should easily serve their purposes, and would offer them a more permanent solution. '73 de JIM N2ZZ ARRL Vice Director Roanoke Division ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio™ From: Chris Imlay [mailto:w3kd@aol.com] Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 12:42 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:18616] Re: American Hospital Association waiver request Actually, Tom, AHA is not proceeding under the terms of the FCC's case-by-case waiver process. They are asking for their own waiver, unique to them, on their own terms. The FCC does have the authority to waiver rules for good cause shown, under certain criteria established by case law, so they can ask for whatever waiver they want, without being constrained by FCC's separate waiver process. But I for one do agree with you; their request is a bit vague, and therefore potentially objectionable on that basis. It is also arguable that the FCC has this established waiver process in place that is sufficient termporarily for AHA's purposes pending resolution of the rulemaking. But the AHA waiver is not in the same category as those filed under the FCC's current 97.113 waiver process. Whether or not we believe that the AHA waiver should have been filed within the scope of that procedure is another issue, but we can't really argue that point too hard, because the FCC's present requirements and conditions for 97.113(a)(3) waivers are not consistent with the Board's policy for modification of Section 97.113, so we don't want to hold the "government sponsored drills" limitation in the present waiver process as a "good" standard, even temporarily. I asked Scot Stone last evening when the AHA waiver would be on public notice, and he said either next week or the week after next. In the meantime, we have for several days had in an acknowledged request to Bryan Tremont, the AHA's communications lawyer, who Dave and I know reasonably well, to discuss this informally. Bryan has our FCC briefing paper on the Board's proposed 97.113 change. I am a bit concerned that he has not substantively responded to me yet. I continue to think he will, but if not, we will have to decide how to respond to the AHA's rather broad waiver request. The executive committee is of course considering the proper response to AHA when this hits public notice if we are not able to reach an acceptable understanding with AHA before that time. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper. P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG -----Original Message----- From: Tom Frenaye <frenaye@pcnet.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Thu, Feb 25, 2010 11:04 pm Subject: [arrl-odv:18611] Re: American Hospital Association waiver request At 01:17 PM 2/22/2010, Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ wrote: The attached waiver request was shared with us this morning. The language we are proposing for 97.113(a)(3) would seem to meet their needs. That said, it seems disingenuous of AHA to argue that participating in a drill that is required in order to maintain your employer’s accreditation is not “on behalf of” the employer. I don't believe the waiver can be granted under the conditions the FCC has articulated for waiver requests. The FCC release (DA 09-2259) said: Waiver requests should be submitted to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau by the government entity conducting the drill, and must provide the following information: (1) when and where the drill will take place; (2) identification of the amateur licensees expected to transmit amateur communications on behalf of their employers; (3) identification of the employers on whose behalf they will be transmitting; and (4) a brief description of the drill. We emphasize that the filing of a waiver request does not excuse compliance with the rules while that request is pending. The waiver must be requested prior to the drill, and employees may not transmit amateur communications on their employer’s behalf unless the waiver request has been granted. 1) The AHA is not a government entity, many hospitals are private, non-profit and for-profit. 2) The request does not come close to being specific - guess that's why they call it a blanket request. No places identified, no licensees, no dates, no real description. If they grant this request, the FCC will have effectively blown open the restrictions placed in the waiver and opened the process far beyond what we envisioned. -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444