[Ares-races] Paid vs volunteer radio operators

[N4AOF]

> One critical definition may be what is an emergency.  Emergency
messages
> are defined as containing information relating to an immediate threat
to
> life or property.  For Skywarn, this could be initial reports of a
> tornado on the ground (redundant).  Within a hospital, cardiac or
> respiratory arrest, or uncontrolled hemorrhage would also fit.  For
law
> enforcement, who knows?  It is my contention that during incidents and
> disasters, these sorts of messages are, fortunately, relatively rare.
>  All communications fall into one of two large categories:
information
> or requests for resources.  The overwhelming majority of the
> communications are not relating to any immediate threat to life or
property.

EXACTLY.

And, ALL messages that hams would be sending handling at the hospital
would be The Normal BUSINESS Of The Hospital.  Although the FCC has
loosened the ham rules against "business" traffic, they clearly take a
very skeptical view of any business using its employees to conduct
company business on the ham bands -- as should we all.

As Rick discovered, there is no problem with the hospital installing ham
radio equipment.  And there is no problem with hospital employees using
that equipment to chit chat with other hams (well, the hospital would
probably think such chit chat while on duty was a problem, but the FCC
wouldn't object to it).  The FCC problem arises when the hospital
assigns its paid employees to conduct hospital business via ham radio.

In a genuine "Emergency" such business traffic is legal in the absence
of other means of communication.  But even for a hospital and in the
midst of a disaster, that combination is still going to be rare.

I've spent 29 years with my primary radio interest being emergency
communications - I would guess that in those 29 years I may have sent
two or three messages that were genuine emergency traffic, handled
receiving two or three more, and heard a similar number handled by
others.  The combination of an immediate threat to life or property and
an absence of other means of communication is extremely rare.

The situation Rick proposed runs into the fuzzy gray area around the
"emergency" business communications and dab smack into the middle of the
No Remuneration rule.  If the hospital has some FLSA-Exempt employees
who happen to be ham radio operators, they could take those employees
off the clock while manning the station, but that probably wouldn't be a
very satisfactory idea for the employees involved.  A more practical
answer could be to allow hospital employee hams to monitor the station
until non-employee hams arrived, since only transmitting is regulated,
listening to the local ham emergency net is perfectly legal.  The
employee ham could operate the station in a genuine emergency in the
absence of other means of communication - in the unlikely event that
were to happen.