CQ Magazine Calls on FCC to Resume Amateur Enforcement

Me thinks the Pot is calling the kettle black. Back in the 1990'S, arrl PETITIONED the fcc TO MAKE it's band plan mandatory, and define non-compliance with it as "NOT good amateur practice." They got shot down and have since changed their position.

As recently as 2005 or so, CQ magazine made non-compliance with the band plan in a contest grounds for disqualification, and the ARRL required certification of knowledge of the band plan to enter its contests. But neither CQ or ARRL ever disqualified anybody from their contests as far as I know for failing to follow the band plan. Those rules have gone the way of the Dodo.

I don't mean to souind anti-contest (tho I am). But what would happen if either of these organizations imnposed "time outs" or some other sanctions for those that screw up? No awards, your QSL's don't count for awards, etc? I think we'd clean things up, at least on HF, in pretty short order. What if the control ops on repeaters just pulled the plug when their systems were abused?

It's not the newbies fault. It's all our fault. These days, there's a lack of respect for "good amateur practice", and I suspect we have enough tools to deal with all but the worst situations our selves.

de Bob

 

We are dealing with an entity that permited IBOC on AM at night, allows RF to travel on powerlines, and is about to make millions of portable TVs and receivers obsolete for those who are still using them. Why should we expect the FCC to do anything for Amateur Radio when all logic and integrity has already been chucked out the window?

Somehow, and I dont know how, we have remained in tact. The present actions of the FCC suggest that they would rather eliminate Amateur Radio altogether and sell off the spectrum.

 

80 Meters = Chicken Band for decades

Oh please!! I have been SWLing 80 meters before I was licensed and it has sounded like the chicken band since the 1980's and probably before. Thats a poor arguement and as a recently licensed HF operator w/o code, I resent it. Don't lump recently licensed operators as "lids" just because you disagree with the new licensing structure.

W4BJM

 

At least the 75-Meter operators of the past weren't neophytes...

By the way, the phone band you're speaking of is called 75 METERS, not 80. Additionally, you can resent it all you like, for the 75-meter ops of the past proved they had mettle... that they could pass a 13 or 20-wpm Morse exam -- a demonstrated skill that couldn't be faked, or passed without intimate comprehension, unlike today's watered down written exams.

Best of luck to you. You missed out on proving your mettle during a better age.

---

Does anyone remember 3895 and 3898 KHz of the late Seventies and early Eighties -- before the Internet? Does anyone remember the Gator Trader Net and Gator Stakes?

Now that was the entertaining radio of discerning hams who knew how to "have fun" on radio. I miss those old coots and their continual soap opera every evening.

Like Hollingsworth said prior to retirement, "Lighten up, folks!"

It's only a hobby...

 

Did those people prove that they passed code, or that they had their buddies (The VEs) in their pocket? Yes I'm sure many did pass code and theory, but a significant amount paid their good old boy buddies for the CSCEs. No system is perfect - past, present or future.

 

I, like most I just spoke of, were licensed Generals, Advanced, and Extras -- before the VE System came along. In fact, when I was sixteen years old, my parents drove me 200 miles to Chicago to take the General Class tests at the downtown FCC Field Office. I passed easily due to dedication and effort, just as I did with my Advanced and Extra before I was 18 or 19 years old.

Did you have your VE in YOUR pocket? Or, were the new, watered-down tests easy enough for you?

Please tell...

 

Most of the OPS he was efering to were tested in front of an FCC Examiner, there were no VEs in the seventies, you had to go to an FCC office to test.

 

Steve, why don't you take your own advise and lighten up. It's only a hobby.

 

What? What? How can this be? The FCC didn't even need to do enforcement against amateurs until 1991!

 

Heh, heh....I forgot

I think I'll go get a grip on my Blue Racer...!

 

FCC Enforcement

As it was said there are a few that think nothing will happen to them, so they take full advantage towards the system. They are no different than several hundred so called contester's. This last DX contest was a joke period. You had hams sending out recorded CQ CQ Contest messages at 1Kz intervals on 20, 40 and 75, They didn't care if they were interuting nets or QSO's with fellow hams so long as they could get their precious numbers. So who has the worse violation's? The ham that has no respect for anyone including himself and makes a complete fool out of themselves or the ham that turns their radio equipment on four or five times a year to play contest and doesn't care who they interfere with or interupt?
Best Regards to All,
Larry~W5HO

 

WANTED CANADIAN FOX HUNTERS, ASAP!

WE NEED CANADIAN FOX HUNTERS TO LOCATE THIS CLOWN JAMMING THE 20 METER BAND. ARRL AND FCC ARE PROBABLY WILLING TO GIVE A REWARD TO ANY GROUP WHO CAN LOCATE THIS JAMMER AND COORDINATE WITH CANADIAN AUTHORITIES. IF CANADIAN SIDE TELECOMMUNICATION AUTHORITIES DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS, HOW ABOUT LOCAL HAMS IN CANADA WILL LOCATE THIS JAMMER AND REPORT TO A LOCAL CITY POLICE, OR TO A LOCAL MOB GANGSTER GROUP? IT'S CHEAPER AND QUICK, WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER RILEY.

>Dandy, K6ZRH
" If it doesn't make sense, It doesn't make cents"

 

Hello Everybody,

The lack of enforcement has emboldened the abusers of our resource. In the past year it has gotten out of control on some repeaters here in Northern California.

I would compare what is happening on the repeaters and the bands to a vandal defacing a National monument in front of a ranger who does nothing...
It is shame that the OO`s and the ARRL people with enforcement commitments have no effect.

I have repeatedly heard vulgar, racial and malicious jammers on the air, cop jammers ( ones jam fire and pd freqs) reported them to OO`s & the ARRL last winter (2007) and the abuse continues... It is Nov 19 2008, still no end of this! What a shame.

Anthony A. Andrianos, KC6KIM

 

As I said 6 years ago

CQ Rag...cry out all you please. The pure nature of the beast that has set the course of the state of Amateur Radio has it exists TODAY...is the tone of "Ham Leadership" and it's operators around the country that began over a decade ago.

And, most certainly, that of the ever-shrinking ham population of Central Florida.

In short, the extraordinary misgiving of failing to focus on "the service" as it reflects [our] readiness in emergency preparedness AND how [it] compares to a bunch over-zealous and quite frankly arrogant ham leadership as a "hobbiists"...is what our community, state and national leadership see amateur radio as today. WE failed to attract, properly train and nurture new blood in "the service." WE failed to end the seemingly never ending bravado of emergency preparedness fools who had nothing on their collective minds...but personal agendas.

But herein lies one perfect example of why, in my opinion, the F.C.C. couldn't care less if amateur radio simply fell from the face of the earth.

In Central Florida, this past August during the course of Tropical Storm Faye, a local "Emergency Preparedness Organization" ran a net. During the net, two county shelters opened simply due to the fact of local flooding and heavy rains. Minor wind...just rain. The "net" put out plea after plea after plea for it's organization members to come forth and volunteer for their "tour-or-duty." In the hours of plea falling on deaf ear, the net controller got one operator. One. How do WE present ourselves as a viable option to emergency communications and "First Responders" when a large populous such as Central Florida can not pull but one operator? This is not an isolated incident friends. THIS is the nature of the beast WE have created and most importantly & in my opinion...why the F.C.C. will NEVER again take us seriously. Arrogance killed the radio star! Best to go and dust off those ole' "CB handles" my friends. With BPL again raising it's ugly and this time WITH some serious corporate backing, that too will be hard to get the F.C.C. to regulate and watch-dog for a mere bunch of hobbyists.

 

Sadly the Canadian enforcement is nearly non existent now.

Canadian Amateurs no long pay any fees to hold a license. Industry Canada (IC) appears to not care too much about our hobby. Lack of employees is a big part of this reason.

We can not get any issues resolved up here. Last night I was talking to a local Ham and brought up the subject about a repeater being operated in the simplex frequencies of 2 meters. He said he had contacted IC about and they said it was not their problem, deal with it.

So there is our "ENFORCEMENT" at work.