[ETS/PARC List] Amateur Radio and Enforcement

[Victor Pennetta]

The following are excerpts from informal comments by Riley Hollingsworth,
Retired Special Counsel, FCC Enforcement, speaking at the Forsyth Amateur
Radio Club in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in early November 2014:

"I'm often asked what you can do to help Amateur Radio and help enforcement.
There's several things you can do. One is, don't engage people and don't
humor the idiots. We have a certain number of idiots, just like the legal
profession does, the plumbers profession, medical, whatever. It's just our
society. But, stupidity can't be regulated, no matter how good the rules
are. The thing you do to help the most, is to just turn the big knob. Every
rig has one. Whether the transceiver has 20 buttons or 77, it has one big
knob."

"You'll hear somebody tuning up and it's automatically assumed it is a
deliberate tune-up. At the FCC, we knew from monitoring that 90% of what was
being argued about on the bands was accidental interference. With the rigs
you have today, it's very easy to get them screwed up. So, most of the
interference is not intentional."

"But, our society assumes offense. It wasn't like this 20 years ago. We
are insistent on rights over responsibilities, and it's just the nature of
our times. People are thin skinned. A lot of these people, on 75 meters
mainly, are the same way. They're narrow-minded, they're grouchy, they don't
like new ideas, they're ungrateful for what they have. And you can hear this
on 14313 as well. If they won the state lottery, they would probably bitch
about how it was paid out! So, the main thing you can do to help: don't add
to the problem.
Be part of the solution, even if it means not engaging. If it is a
continuing violation, report it to the Commission or to the League.
But mainly, don't add to the problem. And, you've got to know what the
issues are. Whether its interference from grow lights, or BPL (which has
fortunately gone by the wayside we think and we hope.)"

"You've got to keep up with the issues. Early on [in enforcement], I would
try personal contact with some of the people we were really having trouble
with on the bands, who were causing problems but weren't directly in
violation of the rules. One group, I was saying "Look, if a recording of
your conversation on 75 meters ever went before a Senate subcommittee that
was considering BPL, we're going to lose that hands-down.", because they're
going to say "Why protect this type of service?". And, they didn't know what
BPL was! During the height of the BPL, that worried me more than anything
else, I thought that was very much of a danger to us, I think that was the
biggest danger to us since World War II, to our bands. But, a lot of people
didn't keep up with the issues, they didn't know what it was, they had no
idea how dangerous that was. This group on 75 meters and 14313, they're
being thinned out."

"A lot of these conduct problems, are from the guys who are getting up in
age. They are getting old and grouchy, and the Grim Reaper is going to take
care of some of them. Every year we get some big enforcement action from the
Grim Reaper. And I notice nobody at the FCC wears black armbands over it.
So, in a sense, that's going to take care of itself, I think."

"But, it's not the no code people. I could not see any decline in
compliance with the rules after they eliminated the CW requirement.
It's never the new people. It's the older people that have Extra Class
licenses, and they think they know everything. They've been on the same
frequency for ten years, using 1200 Watts to talk across the state, and they
don't like new ideas, they don't like new people.
They haven't done anything new in Amateur Radio in a decade. That's the ones
that don't know what they don't know. They are thinning out a good bit, but
that still worries me. I saw no decline after the elimination of CW. In
fact, as far as CW goes, there seems to be more interest in CW than ever.
The best way to ruin a good book in high school was to put it on the
required reading list. It could be that requiring the code turned some
people away from it. It seems to be more active than ever."

"One thing that's causing a huge problem, and this is also a sign of our
times: I understand some of the state and federal agencies have this
problem, but it's the problem of people firing off nasty emails, not only to
Laura, but to the enforcement bureau chief, and to the chairman, about
amateur radio situations that they think the FCC should attack. I'm talking
about horrible emails, threatening emails, threatening to the degree that
quite often the security office gets involved. We've got to stop this, it's
giving Amateur Radio a black eye. Some are so threatening that the security
staff might not let Laura travel, and you notice that she doesn't travel
much, partly because of the budget, but partly because of this problem.
There are obscene, threatening and stupid emails by people who are hiding
behind the anonymity of the internet. I'm sure state senators get them, US
senators get them. But when it comes in specifically to the Enforcement
Bureau about an Amateur complaint, it's bad for all of us. It's giving some
people in the Commission a bad taste in their mouth about Amateur Radio.
They sort of understand that they are sent by fruitcakes, but amateurs are
very quick to fire off an email about a complaint or about a situation they
hear on the bands, and they don't know the full background of it. This is a
time when we are hyper-sensitive about security issues. It's just a big
problem, I don't know the solution."

"I think as far as the biggest threats we should be more worried about is
the RF junk that is out there. One of the big problems of interference to
Amateur Radio right now is from grow lights. People are growing marijuana
and that's becoming a little more legal every day, it seems like. Some of
these grow lights are really junk. The League has worked countless hours on
that, and talked to the manufacturers, and gotten a lot of cooperation with
some of them and not so much with the others. It is the RF devices. I think
that is more of a threat than conduct on the bands right now."

"A lot of the local jurisdictions changed the code about which breaker
switches you can use in a house. You have to have what they call arc-faults.
When those first hit, just normal amateur radio RF would trip the breaker.
Within 300 feet. It caused a lot of problems in new housing. A lot of people
were really mad at amateur radio operators in some areas because every time
they got on the breaker went off. The League worked with Eaton company, and
they recalled a lot of those."

"That's the kind of stuff that worries me more about amateur radio,
assuming we keep our numbers up and we stay relevant, and maintain our
proper role in public service communications, and keep the public aware of
what Amateur Radio is, I don't see a threat to our HF frequencies. At the
upper edges, of course, we will have some chipping away with science and
medical equipment and stuff."

"But, mainly it's the junk that's coming out there. It's simple to fix
these. It costs five or ten cents more to make a grow light so it doesn't
cause interference on our frequencies. It's not always amateur frequencies,
it's just that we hear it first, we know more about how to find it. A lot of
people can't listen to AM radio because of some interference, but they don't
have any idea what is causing the signal or where it is coming from, but we
tend to find out, and so we squawk more. Really, I think we are the canary
in the coal mine. But, you have bureaucrats that don't want to do anything
they don't have to do, and they say "Why worry about amateur interference?
We don't guarantee them a pure spectrum anyway, so let's go on to something
else." But, if it interferes with us, it can interfere with aviation
communications, public safety communications, or whatever. So, they've got
to listen to you people because you are the canary in the coal mine."

"I used to be asked if Amateur Radio could survive the internet. I got
that question many times in the early days. I think we've beautifully
survived and blended and enhanced the internet. So, I think we've answered
that question very well. Computers have become a great asset to Amateur
Radio. We've integrated them into everything from logging to emergency
communications."

"We live in an age where there is a technological breakthrough every
month. Not only that, but we've come to expect it. We live in a herd
mentality. We rush out and buy the latest and greatest thing; and on the way
home, is when its obsolescence starts. You can see that with the cellphones
and iphones, we run for the latest thing and as soon as we get it, it starts
being obsolete. Our responsibility is awesome, because we've got to keep
Amateur Radio from becoming obsolete. I hope we're up to it. It's time for
us to leave a legacy to this avocation. It's hard but you can do it. This
whole radio thing is our passion and our gift."