[QCWA] QCWA's PRM - Dismissed By FCC

[ve6afo at 3web.net]

FYI,

Ken Oelke - VE6AFO
*********************************************
QCWA 

The Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) filed a PRM requesting that 
Section 97.119(c) be amended to permit an Amateur Radio operator who is 
a "current or honorably discharged member of the United States military to 
include a unique indicator with the station's call sign identification 
announcement." Section 97.119(c) of the Commission's Rules permits the 
inclusion of indicators with the call sign during station identification, 
provided that no self-assigned indicator conflicts with any indicator 
specified by the Commission's rules or with any prefix assigned to another 
country. 

The QCWA, in support of their proposal, noted that "many Amateur Radio 
operators are serving or have served in the United States military, or became 
Amateur Radio operators during or following their military training in 
communications and electronics, and it states that this proposal would afford 
those individuals the option to advise others of their military service when 
they identify their amateur stations on the air." 

Specifically, QCWA requested that the indicators AF, AA, NA, NM and ACG be 
reserved for use by current or honorably discharged members of the United 
States Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, respectively. 

The FCC dismissed this petition, saying that "Amateur Radio operators who are 
current or honorably discharged members of the United States military already 
are permitted to identify their stations in the way QCWA suggests. The present 
rule permits a control operator to include an indicator with the call sign, 
subject only to the limitation that a self-assigned indicator not conflict 
with any other indicators specified by the Commission's rules or with any 
prefix assigned to another country. We note that the indicators QCWA suggests 
do not conflict with other indicator specified by the rules or with another 
country's prefix. They therefore may be included as an indicator with a 
presently-assigned amateur station call sign." 

The Commission went on to say that the QCWA "seeks to regularize the use of 
its proposed indicators to increase their recognition, the amateur community 
may do so without any change to the amateur service rules." As such, the FCC 
deemed such a rule change unnecessary and dismissed the QCWA's petition. 

The FCC concluded that these three PRM requests were unnecessary in light of 
the existing rules, and do not warrant further consideration at this time.

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