[Milsurplus] "More FCC Foolishness"

[Hue Miller]

>From an editorial in Collier's Magazine, June 22, 1946

Making up the Federal Communications Commission where we
dropped it in our last editorial on it, we would like to tell of a
letter which one of our readers has written us about this group
of bureaucrats.
The letter comes from John H. Barron, a Washington, D.C.,
consulting radio engineer. It has to do with a walkie-talkie radio
set which Mr. Barron recently bought. These sets are being sold
as Army surplus, at around $100, and are advertised by retailers,
in entire good faith, as being suitable for civilian use on
issuance of a license.
The box containing the walkie-talkie which Mr. Barron bought
carried no word about its being illegal for anyone to use the set.
He found that out later, when the FCC issued a news item to the
effect that unauthorized use of walkie-talkies subjects one to a
$10,000 fine or jail sentence or both; that the FCC is not yet
ready to issue walkie-talkie licenses to civilians, and won't be
ready for some time; and that civilians may operate these
devices only in the 460-470 megacycle band. The Army surplus
walkie-talkies do not operate in this band.
As an excuse for this Verbot, the FCC offers:
Tragic interference to the aviation, marine, police, fire
and military radio communication systems can result
from the unauthorized operation of radio equipment.
To that, Mr. Barron retorts in his letter to Collier's:
The United States Army has been operating this equipment
for the past four years, and presumably no damage
has resulted. The range of this equipment is so restricted
that it is hard to visualize interference being caused.
And here is the Barron pay-off line:
I believe it would be a very simple matter for the FCC to alter its
rules so as to make operation of these walkie-talkies legal in the
band in which they operate, although, of course, such a unique
and radical approach to a practical solution of this problem
would never occur to or be countenanced by the government.

In the whole incident, we have another sample of the workings of
the bureaucratic mind. The government encourages the sale
of walkie-talkies from Army surplus. In the case of the set
bought by Barron, at least, the government warns neither seller
nor buyer that there will be any legal catch about using the device.
Then it develops that the buyer risks a heavy fine and/or
jail sentence if he uses the property he has bought.
Mr. Barron calls this a fraud practiced on citizens by their own
government. We could think of several other names for it, but
maybe we'd better not print them.     

( via: Hue Miller. As reprinted in the PSARA Newsletter for March 2010. 
Must be referring to the BC-222/322, right? I don't think the BC-1000
were being released yet. $100 sounds high for a surplus price, but I 
think I recall seeing such prices for a "complete" setup at around the
start of the "surplus dump". )