FFC Rules to Elminate Vanity Call Sign Fee and GMRS License Fee

I could see a lot of VERY UNHAPPY people here re, eliminating the GMRS license entirerly, lots of the folks that use that service were there a long time, and they likely will have something to say about this. However, if they did get rid of the fee it couls potentially bring in more users to the GMRS service, which, at least here in this area is VASTLY underused. This should be intresting to watch, just to see what crops up. Stay tuned folks . N9NRA

 

No problem. Just add it to the 18 trillion dollar tab.
I remember when CB'ers were issued licenses and that band was policed (slightly).
Notice that paper Amateur tickets are being phased out, and according to the recent article by Dave, N1ZZ in QST, the FCC is not going to be able to police the ham bands sufficiently due to reductions.
Just my opinion, but I think a considerable increase in license fees should be in order to help fund FCC services, especially ham band policing. Maybe a surcharge on ham gear, IE... $1000 rig = $100 surcharge, $3,000 rig = $300 surcharge etc, etc. We can afford the radios, why can't we afford to pay our share of government services? Of course, much of it would be misappropriated, but that is to be expected as long as we elect the crooks that appoint these "brilliant" government service administrators.

 

According to the FCC, Congress must approve these changes.

 

They would actually make more money by bringing back the respected and attractive Extra Class license certificates. They could provide an option for either the electronic plain license or the certificate license for $20 and make them available to all current licensees as well as provide a little more incentive for those thinking about upgrading.

 

Christmas! You think I would have stayed in ham radio saying WA1HBX?

Notta chance. I like my 100 year old callsign.

73
Chip W1YW

 

I think many of the problems come from our "brilliant" congress and the sausage-like mixture of legislation they produce trying to satisfy all their constituents, and their campaign contributors. Then the administrators have to execute the law, flawed or not.

 

You won't catch me with a vanity call. My wife does hold K5ADC. The suffix matches both our initials. So she let's me use her call every once in a while for a little fun.

But I do like the confusion that the State of Texas allows me to instigate by having the same plate on more than one vehicle. The nice lady at the local tax office had to call TXDOT in Austin to ask how to set this up. The rep at the North Texas Tollway Authority said "You can't do that!".

Au contraire mon frere!

 

No problem. Just add it to the 18 trillion dollar tab.
I remember when CB'ers were issued licenses and that band was policed (slightly).
Notice that paper Amateur tickets are being phased out, and according to the recent article by Dave, N1ZZ in QST, the FCC is not going to be able to police the ham bands sufficiently due to reductions.
Just my opinion, but I think a considerable increase in license fees should be in order to help fund FCC services, especially ham band policing. Maybe a surcharge on ham gear, IE... $1000 rig = $100 surcharge, $3,000 rig = $300 surcharge etc, etc. We can afford the radios, why can't we afford to pay our share of government services? Of course, much of it would be misappropriated, but that is to be expected as long as we elect the crooks that appoint these "brilliant" government service administrators.

 

Certainly beats the heck out of looking the gift horse in the other end.

 

What tab? Contrary to what I wrote earlier, I looked it up, the FCC is currently entirely funded by collected fees. It doesn't add anything significant to the federal deficit as it doesn't receive federal tax money. Want to know where the $3.5 trillion 2015 budget goes? 65% goes to mandatory spending including Social Security & Medicare. 45% goes to discretionary spending, and of that 55% goes to the military. 0% goes to the FCC.

Because we already perform an invaluable service to our communities? Practically impossible to put a price on helping out with communications at the various community functions, and forbid, crisis and disaster management communications when everything else has failed or is impractical. How much is a life worth?

Not all of us licensees are rich. Adding costs to the equipment might be negligible to someone willing & able to spend thousands on a radio, but there's a lot of us that get by on decades old radios because we can't afford new brand new $1000++ radios. We do just fine with those sub $200 and (much) cheaper radios. If there were significant fees associated with even getting the license you can be sure there wouldn't likely be enough licensed amateurs to help out communities when they are most needed.

I don't really see a point in the vanity call signs and wouldn't really notice if they were discontinued entirely. However, if you read the proposed rule making (I assume you did... riiiiight?) They lay out their reasoning and it doesn't take a large leap of logic to suggest that since amateur licenses are free to begin with, it's still in the public interest to simply drop the fees entirely from the FCC's point of view. The FCC has a 2015 budget of roughly $350 million. $250,000 in fees is not even 0.01% of the budget. It's entirely insignificant.

A note on enforcement proceedings. I've not been able to find the cost range of bringing a single enforcement action against an individual, but somehow I doubt the FCC can collect enough "surcharge" on one time equipment purchases and license fees to fund more than a few, if any, enforcement actions and still encourage participation in the Service. It really would become a rich kid's toy.

I agree we are the bottom head on the totem pole when it comes to enforcement activities because we don't significantly add to the FCC's budget. Action goes to those with the money to spend on those commercial allocation licenses and auctions. For the most part, I'm one of those amateurs that's happy the FCC doesn't give us the amount of attention it does the telecom giants.

Sure we have incursions by unlicensed individuals and sometimes bigger players, but by and large it doesn't really seem to be a major problem. The few times we've had unlicensed individuals on the local 2 meter band repeaters. They disappeared after local licensees told them using the frequency is illegal without a license and they should stop or they'd be reported to the FCC. I know there are cases where that hasn't worked, as there's plenty of people feeling entitled to anything and everything. I just don't see it as the major widespread problem some make it out to be. If it really were a widespread problem the FCC would probably just discontinue the Amateur Radio Service entirely. I see much more of a problem from cheap Chinese electronics exploiting loopholes in FCC testing requirements with severe and often broad RFI. But that falls under part 15, and it's not entirely an amateur radio issue, just that we're more likely to discover it first.

Public sector graft is a fact of life. In many cases it costs more money due to increasing layers of red tape to curtail than what's lost to theft or mismanagement short of gross incompetence. Also the word "misappropriated" is bandied about often. It's lost it's meaning. "Misappropriated" what and according to whom? The who often changes with the ideological bent of the person using the term.

Now, as for the FCC specifically, the new chairman Tom Wheeler has done an admirable job bucking not only the FCC's recent history of being cozy to the telecom industry, but making the best of a bad situation with Congress being a bunch of paid shills for the telecom industry who happens to be one of the largest campaign contributors and lobbying groups in DC and state levels.

Granted there are two very prominent (as in sticks out like a sore thumb prominent) members of the Commission that continuously parrot telecom positions nearly word for word from industry PR documents. But of the two other members, they tend to vote with some independence of thought on FCC rule making. It's quite easy to check their voting records on either the FCC's website or the various government watchdogs' sites. So no, not everyone in a position of power in government service is the idiot some tend to think they are. I'd go so far as saying Wheeler taking his position as industry regulator and caretaker of public property seriously.

 

You can have mine. I've tasted that government cheese, and it sucks. I'll pay for the real stuff, thank you

 

just another example of our bloated, inefficient government. If they raised the fee to $300, they'd still find a way of wasting it and not have enough to "cover expenses".

 

How? How is cutting the fees an example of a "bloated, inefficient government"? If anything, it is illustrating the opposite. If they raised the fees, you'd be complaining as well.

Steve
KV6O

 

Everyone, please read the ENTIRE order, as it is clearly stated that these fees will NOT be absorbed by the government.

From page 9, paragraph 22 of the FCC order:

I wonder what these "other wireless fee categories" are? Seems to me that we will pay these fees in some way or another...

 

I got callsign KT0DD and my name is Todd so for me the "Vanity" part holds true. As long as you want a call that fits the amateur service format, if you can be creative, you can get something that looks like your name if it hasn't been taken.

It's the same as personalized car license plates. Many states call those "Vanity" plates.