[AMRadio] FCC app fees

[Bill Cotter]

With all the money we are saving because of COVID-19 (gas money, 
restuarant money, entertainment, etc), maybe a trivial license fee 
is affordable.

73 Bill N4LG


At 05:41 AM 10/29/2020, Rob Atkinson wrote:
>There's pros and cons to the fee.  ARRL is against it for honest
>reasons but they're also probably against it for other reasons they
>aren't telling us.   Of course it's political in that most hams seem
>to be against it so ARRL is, in order to not lose any members,   But
>they also likely don't want to see that 750,000 licensees in U.S.
>statistic go down which it would.  They point to that stat. every time
>they want to defend some band that no one uses like 5 GHz.  On the
>other hand, I would rather have a population of real hams who are
>active, competent and serious about radio, even if it is 30,000 rather
>than an inflated bogus population of paper hams who don't even have a
>station set up and have never even been on the air.   $50 would
>probably eliminate everyone who doesn't use their licenses, freeing up
>call signs and it would end the nut cases who have 10 vanity call
>signs.  If they assessed the $50 just to file an application to take a
>test it would be better because it would eliminate the memorizers who
>learn nothing and just keep testing until they manage to pass.  I had
>to pay a fee and travel to FCC tests and you bet that made me make
>damn sure I was going to pass each time.
>
>The last thing we want is for FCC to delegitimize ham radio to the
>level of CB or Part 15.   What little interference protection we have
>would be gone.  I'm sure they'd love to get rid of the burden, but
>imagine calling CQ and have people come back to you with no call
>signs, just made up names like Kentucky Bill or made up calls like WBT
>because they don't know any better.
>
>73
>Rob
>K5UJ
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