[SMCARA] FCC Forum at Dayton - Remarks by Riley/K4ZDH

[J D Delancy]

Should have gone to Dayton

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Geoff/W5OMR" <ars.w5omr at gmail.com>

Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 5:02 AM
Subject: FCC Forum at Dayton - Remarks by Riley/K4ZDH
I was there at Dayton, but didn't go to any of the forums.  Guess I 
should have ;-)
-Geoff/W5OMR


* FCC FORUM - Remarks by RILEY HOLLINGSWORTH, K4ZDH *

*Special Counsel, Spectrum Enforcement Division, FCC Enforcement Bureau*

Well you could have gone to the Flea Market, but you came to CHURCH 
instead! I've got you now. Thank you for coming to Dayton. Just by your 
sheer numbers you make the DARA Hamvention one of the most powerful 
forces in Amateur radio, and it shows that you are serious about it 
...and that you care about its future.

By participating in an event such as this you help ensure its future 
...you show your numbers and your determination.

I'm not going to go over enforcement updates - there's no need to take 
up your time on that. You can follow Amateur radio enforcement in the 
publications---QST, CQ Magazine, and on the websites of ARRL, RAIN 
Report, Newsline and now our own FCC webpage by going to FCC.gov and 
going to the Enforcement Bureau pages. The ARRL web page has a link to 
that as well.

I want to talk to you about what bothers me most about Amateur Radio 
...and I want to give you a homework assignment.

The blatant rule violators ...I think you can see that we are taking 
care of them - or most of them - on a gradual basis. Current violations 
are about what we would expect from a service your size.

But what concerns me most is this: You still need to "lighten up." I 
said that last year but you need to take it to heart more. All of you 
can learn from each other. And you need to work together more and show a 
little more respect for your diverse interests and for the service as a 
whole. It isn't about you. It isn't about enforcement. It's about 
Amateur radio.

Every time you get on the air, you need to decide what's most important 
to you ...the best interests of Amateur radio as a whole, or your own 
pride or ego or "rights". I realize I may be preaching to the choir 
here, but on the air you need to be more cooperative and less 
argumentative. And I need you to take this message with you when you go 
home.

Your homework assignment is to read Dave Sumner's article in May 2007 
QST, page 9. I have a couple hundred copies for you and if you can't get 
one, contact me and I'll scan one to you.

In a nutshell, I have good news and bad news. The good news: nothing is 
wrong with Amateur radio. It is a good service that is showing its value 
to the public on a daily basis. Bad news is that there is an element of 
Amateur radio that too often reflects present society generally. 
Whatever the phenomenon behind Road Rage - whatever that is - that's 
what I am talking about. All of you need to work together and depend 
upon the FCC less to solve your operating problems. We live in a rude, 
discourteous, profane, hotheaded society that loves its rights, prefers 
not to hear about its responsibilities, and that spills over in to the 
Ham bands.

I can't really say it any better than Dave Sumner did in May 2007 
QST-Page 9, and your homework assignment is to read it: "Most of the 
unpleasantness that erupts from time to time on the most popular HF 
bands can be avoided if we're willing to be flexible in our frequency 
selection."

I have some messages to all the groups along these lines. But before I 
get to that, I want to say that a little more kindness would go a long 
way in your service. Lots of you are like people in a parking lot 
arguing over a parking space when there are hundreds available. We are 
all ordinary people, and even on the best days, probably work and think 
at around 60% efficiency. We are not the greatest nation on earth. We 
think we are but we aren't and we aren't the greatest people. Look at 
the evening news for about a week if you don't realize that. And think 
about what the rest of the world sees going on in America.

What we ARE is this: "We are rude, self important, cell phone yapping, 
road raging, and stressed out monsters behind the wheel." And all too 
often behind the microphone. You are increasingly calling upon the FCC 
too much to solve your problems. Remember: "Most of the unpleasantness 
that erupts from time to time on the most popular HF bands can be 
avoided if we're willing to be flexible in our frequency selection."

To all Amateur Radio operators in general: I was looking at a 1968 QST 
the other day and noticed inside the back cover an ad for Swan 
transceivers. Some of you might remember the 350 and the 250. These were 
really state of the art at the time. The 350 has 17 little controls and 
one big one. The VFO, presumably to make it easy to change frequencies. 
Now let's go to a 2007 QST magazine and look on the back cover at the 
Kenwood TS570. It has 46 little controls and knobs, and one big one, the 
VFO. Look near the back at the ICOM 7800. It has about 75 little 
controls and buttons, but the real big knob is still the VFO 
...presumably to make changes in frequency the easiest function of all!

That's why you are the only service that has thousands of frequencies 
and hundreds usable at any given time of day or year. It was designed 
that way to give you alternatives, to have fail safe back up plans and 
to experiment and lead technology. Even the public safety services don't 
have thousands of frequencies.

Now some frequencies are like bad neighborhoods. They are being cleaned 
up but it will take more time and it's just not something that happens 
overnight. We will get there. Take 14.275 for example. Probably in the 
future it will be determined that RF radiation does indeed cause brain 
damage, but ONLY at 14.275. It is a bad neighborhood. Stay away. I get 
calls every week from the same group of people who went to 14.275 and 
got abused.

Now if you had 3 alternative streets you could take to work every day 
but when you used one, you always got a rock thrown at your windshield, 
wouldn't you decide to take one of the other streets after, say, 5 or 6 
windshields? After several windshields the logical question would arise 
as to who is the biggest fool - you or the person throwing the rocks! 
Why don't you take the same approach to Amateur Radio?

There are good operators and poor operators, just like everything else 
in life. There is a Canadian there that Canada considers mainly a 
fruitcake and doesn't take him seriously. Their Amateur rules are more 
lax than ours and so are some of their laws. It's an international 
problem and we can do very little about it. But when you go there and 
take the bait (And you ALWAYS seem to take the bait!) ...you get into 
arguments, you make the problem WORSE and you make it an American 
problem as well and Amateur Radio gets a black eye. There is a bad 
operator in Italy. too. But these are not problems we can correct.

The other day I was talking to one of the complainants about 14.275 and 
I asked why he insisted on going there. He said "Well, old (name 
deleted) likes to talk there and he doesn't have any other antennas". 
Well, that must be a hell of a precisely cut antenna to only operate on 
the 20 Meter frequency of 14.275! I heard an argument there the other 
afternoon and one operator was saying "I'm not going to be driven off 
the frequency. I got rights!"

The Orientals have a saying about Americans; they say an American will 
lose butt to save face. Just go somewhere else. The world is ugly enough 
...don't add to it. People make mistakes and 90% of interference 
perceived as deliberate is accidental or at least unintentional. Listen 
to this complaint we got:

"I've listened all day to a drift net beacon on 75. It's S9 here at home 
so its probably up or down the Bay. Please make a DF and find it." Now 
that message came in at 4:57 PM. At 6:29 PM THIS message came in: 
"You're going to laugh. It was a Linksys five port Ethernet switch in 
the next room. When I tried to DF it with a selective AM radio I noticed 
the signal went silent when I left home."

Why do you always assume an offense? Again, "Most of the unpleasantness 
that erupts from time to time on the most popular HF bands can be 
avoided if we're willing to be flexible in our frequency selection." 
Again, in a problem like 14.275, just leave. Report it to us if it is a 
violation. But just use one of the hundreds of other useable frequencies 
you have and enjoy radio!

I know of one net that when they get interference they say "OK everyone, 
go to frequency B." They just remain silent for half hour. It drives the 
interferer crazy because he can't find them!

As Dave Sumner said in his May article: "It is unfair to your fellow 
Amateurs to assume every instance of interference you may encounter is a 
hostile act." Even if it is, the best contribution you can make is to 
leave and not make it worse. Remember that saying from the 60's: "What 
if they gave a war and nobody came?" Well, what if they gave an argument 
on 75 Meters and nobody came? You can help us and help Amateur radio by 
making this contribution: Don't respond. Don't become the problem. 
Report it to us, then use the big knob. It is possible that with current 
society being rude and hotheaded, this is as good as your service can 
get for a while anyway. That remains to be seen, but defuse problems, 
don't add heat to them.

We can enforce our rules but we can't enforce kindness and courtesy or 
common sense. And a very wise person, who happens to be standing to my 
left (Bill Cross), once told me: "You just can't regulate stupid." If we 
could, we'd be working for the United Nations instead of the FCC.

Now I have specific messages for more of you.

To the Nets: Just because you have been on the same frequency for 75 
years, that doesn't mean you own it. All frequencies are shared. If you 
vary your frequency, or even if you don't have a net one night, the 
radio world isn't going to end.

To repeater owners: Just because you are coordinated doesn't mean you 
own the frequency. Coordination is a recommendation, not a frequency 
assignment. It's your call sign on the repeater and it's your station 
and your responsibility ...just as if you had left the door open to your 
station at home. If there is abuse, lock the door. Don't ask us to be 
baby-sitters or hall monitors of your repeater. That's what control 
operators are for. Nobody asked you to start a repeater. If you shut it 
down tomorrow, what would happen? People would use OTHER repeaters!

To the contesters: be more courteous. You are responsible for the 
frequency you are operating on and realize that's true even when you 
operate split. All frequencies are shared.

To those who don't like contesters: lighten UP!! Contests are short 
lived. Use the WARC bands. Wash the car. Cut the grass. Learn from the 
contesters - and this applies to you Traffic net folks too - learn from 
the contesters. They pass information a lot faster and more efficiently 
than you do. Contesters are some of the best radio operators on planet 
Earth. If the contesters operated at the same pace as some of the 
emergency traffic nets, the contest would be over after the first few 
dozen signal strengths were exchanged!

To the widebanders: If you want to be a Broadcaster, apply for a 
broadcast license. Using extraordinarily wide bandwidth on crowded 
frequencies at peak operating time is rude, selfish and inconsiderate.

To the QRP'ers: Thank you thank you, thank you for your vitality, 
inspiration, enthusiasm and for being BUILDERS again! I wish I could 
take your enthusiasm and spread it over all segments of Amateur radio. 
When I watch you folks, I see the excitement and magic of my first contact.

To those who don't like QRP'ers: Lighten UP. ANYONE can use a linear 
amplifier as a crutch.

To the rag chew nets: 4 or 5 people meeting on the same frequency every 
night for 50 years using 1200 watts to talk a few hundred miles when 100 
watts would do just fine is not a net. It's an informal roundtable. It 
ain't going to hurt you either to vary your frequency or skip a night. 
And the so-called "net" on 75 that bills itself as an "Oasis of Amateur 
Radio": Give us all a break. You are an ordinary roundtable. And no net 
is an "Oasis of Amateur radio."

To those of you who don't like DXpeditions: Lighten UP! If a group of 
people want to spend a lot of money to go to a rock or sandbar in the 
ocean, live in a tent and swat flies and scorpions for a week and talk 
over Ham radio 24 hours a day, SO WHAT: LET'EM DO IT!!. DXpeditions, 
too, are short lived, and such operation must be important to SOMEONE. 
Scarborough Reef drew over 50,000 contacts didn't it. And weren't over 
half of them CW, by the way? Nobody would have even known about it had 
it not been published in popular radio magazines.

And to those of you who have been continual problems and we just haven't 
gotten to you yet: you now have a problem yourselves. Your renewals are 
coming up. YOU have the burden of proof in showing that you should have 
a license and YOU have to come to Washington to make your case. And we 
are going to have a LOT of questions for you.

And finally, to all of you who will no doubt moan about the code being 
eliminated, I say this:

----IF it was such an earthshaking issue, why did less than 1% of you 
even file comments during the decision making process?? WHY is it 
important NOW but it wasn't important THEN??

----HOW can it be a "filter", when the worst enforcement problems we 
have all passed a 13 or 20 WPM code test?

----It wasn't eliminated; it just isn't required anymore. For a drivers 
test, did you have to know how to drive a 5 or 6 speed transmission? 
Well, those are some of the coolest cars on the road!

----The idea of eliminating the code requirement has been kicking around 
for years, yet there is more code equipment today than ever before: 
keyers, keys, straight and bug and readers ...you name it.

We won't know the effect of eliminating that requirement for ten years. 
I personally won't be here ...years of Hamfest hotdogs will have taken 
their toll. But I HONESTLY don't see it as an enforcement problem.

I'm loyal to the code. I wish we could have kept it at 13. But my bet is 
that dropping the requirement will turn out to be a stroke of genius.

Only Time will tell, but if we don't so something to draw in more 
people, and appeal to greater numbers, in a few years at Dayton we'll 
ALL be bumping into each other with our WALKERS! Let's face it folks - 
look around - we're getting' OLD!!

We all need to try NEW things and always work towards keeping Amateur 
radio dynamic. Know the issues: participate in it. But most of all ENJOY 
it!!!

And thank you again for all the incredible support you give our 
enforcement program. The self-regulating aspect of your service never 
ceases to amaze me!

And in closing, I have yet another message for all of you, in and out of 
the choir: I have been working for you for 8 years, 7 months, 16 days 
and about 2 hours now. I can't imagine a BETTER group of licensees to 
work with. I have always had interesting jobs with the Commission and I 
am one of the few people on earth who like their job. I have always 
liked working at FCC, but you folks are the BEST and I am so thankful 
that I have gotten to work FOR you and WITH you and I sincerely thank 
you for that opportunity, and I sincerely admire you and respect you for 
all your passion and dedication. Now don't forget to come up and get 
your reading assignment!