Just now, I received a call from Aamer Zain in the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. He was calling to let me know that a Petition for Rule Making that was filed October 11, 2011, which ARRL had vigorously opposed, was being dismissed without prejudice by the Commission today. A copy of the FCC's dismissal letter is attached. The reason it was dismissed without prejudice is that Lockheed Martin asked that it be dismissed on May 6, 2014. You may recall that the petition was actually filed by Lockheed Martin on behalf of a subsidiary that it had acquired, Savi Technology, an old enemy of ARRL's. Savi had for years sold RFID tags to the military. They developed smart tags for tracking shipping containers with data that included details about the contents of containers. In 2004, Savi persuaded FCC (in the aftermath of 9/11) to essentially gut the periodic radiator rules of Part 15 and to permit high-power, near-continuous duty RFID tags in the 433 MHz band (433.5-435.5 MHz). FCC in 2004 threw us a bone and limited the deployment of these devices to "commercial and industrial areas" only and allowed their use only for tracking "commercial shipping containers." Apparently, Savi wasn't able to sell many of these devices with those limitations in place. Savi was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2006 and Lockheed filed the instant Petition as a shill for Savi in 2011. The petition asked: 1. To expand the frequency range for these RFID devices to 433.05-434.79 MHz. 2. To require listen-before-transmit protocols to avoid interference to Amateur Radio. 3. To eliminate a manufacturer registration requirement. 4. To delete the limitation of the deployment of the devices to commercial or industrial areas and the limit on the application of the device to commercial shipping containers. We filed strong comments in opposition to this Petition in January of 2012. We got some pushback from Lockheed in a reply comment, but there was other opposition from other part 15 manufacturers to any expansion of this high-power application. Lockheed sold Savi in 2012. We predicted that Lockheed's interest in pursuing this Petition would wane thereafter and in fact it did, though it took a long time to get to that point. It was likely that Lockheed was told by FCC to dismiss this or else FCC would do it themselves. Nothing else explains the timing of this request by Lockheed and the FCC's lightning-quick dismissal of the petition thereafter. But there are other explanations. Anyway, case closed, Amateur spectrum not further polluted, and since Savi can't make the product sell, apparently, all is well that ends well. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG