[BCVHFA] FCC INVITES COMMENTS

[K8CM]

In case you missed it, follows an excerpt from the ARRL Letter, Vol 
25, No 28, July 14, 2006.  The FCC invites comments on a notice of 
proposed rule making.

Some rule changes could impact amateur radio ... might be worth you're reading.

73  <>  Carl

==================================================================================

FCC INVITES COMMENTS ON KATRINA PANEL RECOMMENDATIONS

Comments are due Monday, August 7, in response to an FCC Notice of 
Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) regarding recommendations of the 
independent panel that reviewed Hurricane Katrina's impact on 
communication systems (EB Docket 06-119). Reply comments are due by 
Monday, August 21.

"The Commission, in this proceeding, is to take the lessons learned 
from this disaster and build upon them to promote more effective, 
efficient response and recovery efforts as well as heightened 
readiness and preparedness in the future," the FCC said.

Some of the wide-ranging proposals in the NPRM, released in June, 
could affect the Part 97 Amateur Service rules. The FCC asked if it 
should explore amending its rules to permit automatic grants of 
certain types of waivers or special temporary authority (STA) in 
declared disaster areas. After last year's devastating hurricanes, 
the FCC issued a handful of STAs to permit licensees lacking HF 
privileges to operate on HF for emergency purposes.

The NPRM further offered three specific areas for consideration: 
Waiver of Amateur Radio and license-exempt rules, permitting 
transmissions necessary to meet essential communications needs; 
waiver of application filing deadlines, something the FCC did last 
fall for amateurs living in hurricane-stricken states; and 
a  streamlined STA process.

Interested parties may file comments and view the comments of others 
via the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) 
<http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/>. In either case, enter "06-119" in the 
"Proceeding" field (without quotation marks but including the 
hyphen). A copy of the NPRM is on the FCC Web site
<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-83A1.pdf>.