READ THE article BY WB6NOA IN CQ PAGE 46

FCC lawyer, Laura Smith, says Hams who work for emergency response agencys may not participate in AMATUER RADIO drills on behalf of their agencies. I guess if Hams helping a new Ham to learn to "SAVE LIVES" it will be against federal law.

READ THE ARTICAL !!!!

also can be found in WorldRadio online January 2010 issue.

73's

 

Welcome to a debate that started months ago.

Also, if you took even the briefest moment to research the subject at hand, you'd know that they can apply for a waiver from the FCC that will allow them to operate. So now you can relax, hams can return to "saving lives".

 

Hard to do if you dont get CQ.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

 

Welcome to the world of lawyers and liabilites.

 

More Fuel

Just so you know the waiver is not so good a relief.

It is for one and only one event.

It can only be applied for by a government agency, not an Amateur or any other "served" agency.

It must be specific as to date and times and calls of "compromised" licensees.

Not very forgiving.

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop on pecuniary.

KF7CG

 

FCC

Want to screw up common sense....then throw the FCC and a couple of lawyers at it.....this is one of those times

 

No, in this case it's actually taking common sense and applying it to the situation.

1) If lives or property are actually in immediate danger, do what it takes to secure lives and property during the actual event.

2) If 1 doesn't apply, don't transmit any communications on amateur radio that are from your employer, to your employer, that your employer asked you to send, or that might otherwise potentially benefit the financial or operational position of your employer. If you have a question on the last part, ask the FCC before you generate the RF.

We all know that we're not supposed to transmit anything on behalf of a car repair shop, pizza delivery business, taxi company.... this simply extends that same logic to hospitals, municipal government and NGO groups, and other organizations that may have historically gotten a 'pass' on the rules.

 

True. Item 2 is the way to look at it. We are AMATEUR radio operators, not PUBLIC SAFETY radio operators.

Ed

 

So... if you're a ham who happens to work for a public service agency, and you want to drill or otherwise practice on emergency communications techniques... just do it on your own time under your personal auspices.

What's so hard about that?

 

The FCC has stated specifically that it is against the rules to use Amateur Radio on behalf of your employer, regardless of whether you are on the clock or not. The key is doing it for your employer . Note that you can do it for some other organization that is not your employer, as a volunteer.

One possible way to get around this is to fire all the hams for the duration of the drill, then hire them back when the drill is complete.

 

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Has anyone noticed that there was no rule change in all of this? Not one word of Part 97 was changed. A clarification was requested and received; and just maybe a lesson was learned in the process.

An amateur may not use his radio for gain (benefit) of ones employment or employer. Simple enough. And yet many stretched the interpretation of that simple rule by rationalizing "if I CAN do it in an emergency, I CAN do it in practice."

So, how does someone practice for emergencies if they work for an agency that may be served by ham radio in an emergency? All that need be done is ensure the drill is generic, that is, not specific for an employer/employee. Another way is to assign the hospital employee to work communications for the Red Cross (say at a shelter) where they will have no traffic to pass to/from the hospital where they are employed. The drill is not about working at specific locations, but to improve your skill at handling traffic - whether formal or informal. Public events are another way to 'drill' where you need not have a conflict. Working communications for a bike ride, walk-a-thon, or marathon run are all ways to practice or drill. Just remember that you can't use a March of Dimes employee to work communications during a MOD Walk.

Now we can play to our type-cast of grumpy old men that complain about anything that changes or we can acknowledge the positive about the FCC interpretation and that is:

1. They said the rule is what it always has been and exactly what we always knew it to be. Embrace the consistency.

2. They gave an exemption to governmental agencies. Sure a waiver has to be requested each time, providing specific information, but the process was defined and we have seen it already granted.

Lessons learned?

1. We learned that the rules ARE the rules and we need to think how they apply to our specific situation.

2. We learned that getting mad doesn't accomplish anything, that thinking of alternative ways to do things may lead to a solution that doesn't violate the rules.

3. We learned that just maybe we don't want to ask a question we already know the answer to. We may find we don't like the answer.

73's
Moe

 

Still waiting to learn how far the definition of pecuniary interest stretches! If I apply scientific and investigative logic to this part of the issue, the list of prohibited operations for various occupations grows quite large and pervasive.

All employees of Public Broadcast facilities are banned from any comments concerning the state of traffic flow or of the weather on the amateur bands. Advanced and/or precise knowledge of the traffic or weather conditions in any area might tend to increase their ratings and hence their ad revenue, definitely pecuniary interest.

Any one employed by a transportation company is by similar logic prohibitted from commenting on traffic conditions.

These are just two quick applications of pecuniary interest logic to what can be said and by whom. For the sake of maintaining conformance with the rules, the ARRL should investigate which proffesions have pecuniary interests in what kind of events so that we may be warned away from transgressing the rules.

KF7CG

 

Well put, Moe.

 

If they are reporting back to their broadcast facility, you bet, and I'd hope they'd get popped for it.

One trucker informing another trucker about road conditions, yep, same thing applies. Informing people who aren't driving for hire, no problem. Where does the onus lie? Same place it always has: the operator.

Maybe you missed what NT7C said earlier:

 

Let's look at the bottom line here. "Emcomm" has been used as a tool (improperly so IMO) to recruit new members into the ranks of amateur radio. Who stands to benefit from that financially? The ARRL through increased membership and Gordon West WB6NOA who has sold study guides and taught ham classes (for a fee) for years.

If the influx of new amateurs is reduced because potential new members think they cannot engage in such training to save the world both ARRL and NOA stand to loose financially. Does that help explain why both ARRL and NOA are so opposed to this interpretation of long standing FCC regulations? I think it does.

From a practical standpoint the FCC ruling has minimal impact on Emcomm. In a true emergency anyone can use any radio resource at their disposal. As far as training it is interesting that the hue and cry would have one believe that training is frequent and the rule interpretation has disrupted thousands of training programs. I seriously doubt there were that many training programs (aka drills) on a regular basis that this rule interpretation impacted at all. And for those few that might have been the waiver solves the problem.