The past two weeks prior to Thanksgiving Chwat & Co. has worked on bolstering recognition of our issues with offices now in transition in both the House and Senate. As discussed before, last year some Republican offices took the easy stance of not wanting to inhibit any broadband growth. Democratic offices now in the majority have always been, and we anticipate will be still, very open to our ideas. They have also discussed the BPL wording in Sen. Clinton's (D-NY) bill with both sides of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where her bill currently resides, and with the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where we believe the bill should be. A good meeting took place last week with the staff director of the democratic office (soon to be majority) of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. She acknowledged that she had been informed of BPL/amateur issues before and that she had recently received a constituent letter on the subject. She was very helpful and promised a more in depth discussion in the future. This is also very good news with concern to our McCain amendment/bill. Chwat continues efforts on the Senate side. They met with staff from the offices of Sen. Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Hutchinson (R-TX), both whose staff we've met with before and they appreciated the update. They with Sen. Dorgan's (D-ND) office. Sen. Dorgan is the new Policy Committee Chair for the Senate Majority. This week they have meetings with Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Snowe (R-ME), another staffer on the Agriculture committee and others. The House is in full transition right now but John and Eric are making rounds, informing staff (most of which they have met with before - 95%) of our plans and current issues. With the switch of the parties' control, the government reform committee will be chaired by Rep. Waxman (D-CA), whose staffer Chris and Eric had a good meeting with a month or two back. We have letters into the office pursuing our request for a hearing and should be able to provide more information. House office visits have included Rep. Wynn (D-MD), Rep. Bono (R-CA), Rep. Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Myrick (R-NC), among others. 73 Joel W5ZN