On Monday afternoon Chris Imlay, Riley Hollingsworth and I met with Diane Cornell, Special Counsel in the Office of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, on the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s field restructuring that was discussed in the May QST editorial. On May 5 we had met with Jennifer Thompson in Commissioner Rosenworcel’s office because we had been advised that the Commissioner might be a swing vote on the issue. Ms. Thompson had asked if we been in to see the Chairman’s office, so Chris set up the meeting. Diane Cornell is a “retread” at the FCC, having served on the staff for 13 years before taking a turn in the private sector, and is familiar with the ARRL and Amateur Radio -- sufficiently, for example, to know that Barry Goldwater was a ham. Chris had prepared a memo similar to the one we used in the May 5 meeting (see arrl-odv:24256) that he submitted along with the request for the meeting. Our presentation went along the same lines with Riley emphasizing the increased compliance he had observed in other radio services as a result of Amateur Radio enforcement during his tenure as Special Counsel for Amateur Radio Enforcement, which he attributed to the large number of amateurs who are employed in other services. We cited a few cases where even the existing resources were not leading to timely resolution: the Woodinville, WA "grow light" case from last April where a Citation and Order was issued but with no followup, a Cincinnati jamming case where there was exemplary cooperation between amateurs and the Detroit office that led to identification of the perpetrator but without punitive action, and of course the WARFA Net and NYC cases. Diane acknowledged our concerns and said they also had been flagged by others, which had led the Commission to make some changes in the plan. She said they would "probably" not cut back as much as had been proposed. The objective was not just to cut but to modernize the Field, focus on the RF spectrum instead of issues such as tower inspections, reduce supervisory overhead, and maintain "critical mass" in the remaining offices (i.e. in offices with very small staffs there is little opportunity to get out of the office and into the field). She acknowledged that local visibility of enforcement activity is a powerful deterrent. Just before going into the meeting we already had heard that a deal was being worked out between the House Telecom Subcommittee and the Commission. A hearing had been scheduled for Thursday, June 11, with Chris asked to testify along with NAB and NPSTC. However, the hearing would be canceled if a satisfactory compromise could be reached. And sure enough, the following day the attached news release was issued by the subcommittee. While our meeting with Diane Cornell obviously did not affect the outcome we certainly can claim credit for having pressed the issue with the subcommittee early and strongly, as well as editorially and at the Commission. On Tuesday, Chris, Dan Henderson and I met with Scot Stone, Deputy Chief, Mobility Division, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, FCC. Scot was Bill Cross's supervisor until Bill's retirement. He holds an amateur license, KC3DCD, that was issued last year but I don't believe he would claim to be active. Our reason for asking for the meeting was to find out how Bill's responsibilities were being handled and whether there was anything we could do to help. Scot was joined in person by Stana Kimball, Attorney-Advisor, Mobility Division and via teleconference by Jim Swartz and Becky Williams. Becky works in Gettysburg; Jim is normally in the DC headquarters but was working at home that day. Scot led off by saying that the long term plan was to replace Bill, although he could not say when that would be possible; he was not expecting it until next year. In the meantime Stana is taking care of VEC issues, Becky is handling licensing questions, and Jim (who is in the Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division and handles siting issues such as NEPA) is covering PRB-1 questions. Everything else goes to Scot, including such contact as the ARRL Lab might need to have with WTB. The new "re-entry" rules for former licensees did not address former Conditional licensees who never converted their Conditional licenses to General. Waiver requests will be granted in such cases; ARRL/VEC can email the waiver requests to Becky. There shouldn't be many of them. Scot said that the cost of issuing refunds had been eating up all of the vanity call sign fee revenue, which is why the fee was eliminated. Like us, he regards this as a mixed blessing; there has been no suggestion of ending the program and doesn't expect it to be made as long as the workload remains relatively constant. We talked a bit about the service rules for the new LF and MF bands; I mentioned that as proposed only CW emission would be permitted, which would not meet experimenters' needs, so we anticipated filing comments proposing additional emission options. That led to RM-11708; Scot said an NPRM had been drafted by Bill prior to his retirement and that it was "in the Bureau" meaning that it has cleared the Division and presumably is with the Bureau Chief. Chris briefed the group on the status of HR-1301. Scot expressed some concern that the six-month time frame contained in the bill is very tight if a notice and comment proceeding is required, which it probably would be. It was a very friendly and constructive meeting. 73, Dave K1ZZ