HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL; DIRECTORS, VICE DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS ONLY Greetings. I have just received a call from Bill Cross at FCC, who I am convinced is trying in this instance to be helpful to us. He asked if the Board planned to address the Regulation by Bandwidth Petition at this upcoming meeting. I told him that I would report to the Board on the subject of our pending petition, but that it was not an item that is specifically slated for Board consideration. I asked him what news he had about it. He said that the Mobility Division was now looking at the petitions that were on deck for inclusion in the next “omnibus” Part 97 rulemaking. They were strategizing what petitions would go forward and which would be dismissed. He said there were several on the dismissal list and some that would be proposed in the NPRM that is currently being strategized. With respect to our Regulation by Bandwidth petition, their focus was on the relief requested in the petition “in light of the comments.” The comments on this petition were heavily, some might say overwhelmingly, negative. However, the sentiment, Bill says, is that the Mobility Division does not want to dismiss the petition. They want to know what can be salvaged from it in view of the negative comments. He noted that the objections to the petition were with respect to the regulation by bandwidth at HF, rather than at VHF and above. So he asked some questions. He said that, after Docket 04-140, Novices and Technicians, and Tech Plus licensees have significant HF privileges to operate CW in various segments and phone at 10 meters, etc. So, was it ARRL’s position that Novices and Technicians should be able to utilize any emission at all in the segments of the HF bands in which they can operate now, after 04-140? He noted that the FCC’s position in 05-235 was that the operating privileges for entry level licensees should not be significantly expanded at HF because the upgrades are not that hard, and they didn’t want to create disincentives to upgrade, etc. Bill gave me what he described as, in essence, insider trading. He said that if FCC goes with our Bandwidth petition instead of dismissing it, and if it was to apply to HF as well as VHF and above, FCC was inclined to redo the number of license classes to less than three. Since the major differences between the license classes deal with HF privileges, their thinking is that, if regulation by bandwidth at HF goes forward, they would have two classes of license; an introductory license and a full privilege license equating to the Extra Class now. The clear message was that they want a way out of this, while salvaging our concept and not dismissing our petition. Bill said that the complaints in the adverse comments were with respect to the HF bands. He said that our principal justification for the regulation of subbands by bandwidth was to encourage high speed multimedia and to make more flexible use of digital communications. Those applications that require high data rates are best suited to VHF and above. So, Bill didn’t say this outright, but FCC’s suggestion to us is that it would be perhaps a good thing to consider the modification of our Petition by having it apply to VHF and above, rather than HF at the moment. I told him that there was no specific intention on ARRL’s part by the filing of the regulation by bandwidth petition, to vastly expand the operating privileges of Novice and Tech licensees at HF. That was a product of the intervening, later decision of FCC to allow those licensees to operate CW in expanded segments of the HF bands. However, following the Docket 04-140 action, the access that those licensees have at HF would in fact be expanded by the full panoply of operating modes available to them. This worries the Mobility Division. Cross asked whether we thought that entry level licensees should have access to all operating modes in large portions of the HF segments, limited only by the bandwidth that the selected emission occupies. I asked Bill how much time we had to ponder these things. He said that they are planning now, but that if we could let him know next week how the Board wanted to proceed, that would be soon enough. I assured him that the subject of his call would be discussed at the meeting, and that I would call Bill back next week. I thanked him for calling and for his candor with us on this issue. It strikes me that we would not have gotten this call prior to President Harrison’s letter to the Commissioners recently, which asked for exactly this type of interaction before FCC does something in a particular proceeding. 73, Chris W3KD ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.