FCC Releases Congressionally Mandated Study on Amateur Radio

FCC Releases Congressionally Mandated Study on Amateur Radio

On August 20 -- in response to a Spring 2012 Congressional directive -- the Federal Communications Commission released its findings on the Uses and Capabilities of Amateur Radio Service Communications in Emergencies and Disaster Relief: Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 6414 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012.

This report contains the FCC's "review of the importance of emergency Amateur Radio Service communications relating to disasters, severe weather and other threats to lives and property in the United States; and recommendations for enhancements in the voluntary deployment of Amateur Radio operators in disaster and emergency communications and disaster relief efforts; and recommendations for improved integration of Amateur Radio operators in the planning and furtherance of initiatives of the federal government." It also required "that the study identify impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications and provide recommendations regarding the removal of such impediments."

"There are many positive things included in the FCC report to Congress," said ARRL Regulatory Information Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND. "We are pleased that the Commission highlighted the existing Amateur Radio infrastructure to provide disaster and time-critical communications. They also recognized the flexibility of the Amateur Service in working with federal, state, local and tribal emergency service agencies to supplement existing communications. The affirmation of the value that Amateur Radio brings to the communities across the country is underscored by the suggestion that 'DHS work with state, local, and tribal authorities so they may develop disaster area access or credentialing policies for trained amateur operators, including a means for documenting their qualifications..."'

While the FCC did hold Amateur Radio in a positive light in its discussion of emergency Amateur Radio Service communications, the FCC report was not as favorable in the portion of the study that addressed impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications. In the comments provided to the FCC as they prepared the study, the ARRL -- as well as numerous individuals -- cited the proliferation of specific land-use restrictions, such as deed restrictions and homeowners associations covenants, that prohibit the erection of even modest Amateur Radio antennas.

The ARRL cited that such restrictions now apply to tens of millions of homes and condominiums. In communities across every state, these restrictions make finding suitable living arrangements that would also allow amateurs to participate effectively in providing support communications nearly impossible to find. The FCC disagreed with that assessment stating "...our review of the record does not indicate that amateur operators are unable to find homes that are not subject to such restrictions. Therefore, at this time, we do not see a compelling reason for the Commission to revisit its previous determinations that preemption should not be expanded to CCRs."

When considering any current rules that serve as impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications, the report did agree with the ARRL's position, stating that "Commission rules that may be an impediment to enhanced Amateur Service emergency communications can, as the ARRL notes, be considered through the Commission's rulemaking process. Consequently, we do not believe that Congressional action is necessary to address any of these issues."

In the report, the FCC recommended that "DHS consult with the public safety, emergency management and Amateur Radio emergency communications associations and groups to identify training opportunities that will support better utilization of Amateur Radio operators for emergency communications, and to solicit views on how Amateur Radio capabilities could be further incorporated into response plans or initiatives. We also recommend that OEC include these recommendations in the NECP."

Henderson noted that it is significant "that the FCC recommends efforts be continued by DHS to facilitate the training and utilization of Amateur Radio across the emergency and disaster response spectrum -- from the public sector through to the various groups and organizations which provide support communications via the Amateur Service, including ARES, RACES, MARS or locally organized support groups. When served agencies and amateur groups plan and train cooperatively, it only enhances our abilities to serve our communities and the public."

With the delivery of the FCC's report to Congress, the ARRL will determine its next step in its efforts to find relief for amateurs who live under unduly restrictive private land-use regulations. "Our review of the FCC report shows that there is a lot to be done if amateurs living in deed-restricted properties are to receive even the limited relief they enjoy under the Commission's PRB-1 ruling or the limited relief given to deed-restricted properties given by the FCC's OTARD ruling," Henderson said. "This means continuing ARRL's efforts on Capitol Hill and continuing to seek a Congressional directive to the Commission to extend those limited preemptions to include prohibition of effective Amateur Radio antennas and support structure that are imposed by private land use restrictions. The FCC report to Congress is not the final action in this fight. It merely lays the groundwork for the next steps to be taken by the ARRL," he concluded.

LWRA Traders Net Sets NEW RECORD

June 26th, 2012 will forever be a moment that this Blogger will never forget. On the 2 year Anniversary of the LWRA Traders Net and Rag Chew we not only set a NEW Record for the most checkin's but we celebrated a mile stone. As the NCO (Net Manager) for the LWRA Net, I have come to this conclusion: I belong to a very unique group of individuals who make up the Greatest Ham Club a person could ever want to be in. With a total of 57 checkin's, this group of guys and gals keep me wanting to come back here week after week and doing more. I never really thought it would get this far and now I just want it to get bigger and bigger. We have so many great hams in our club that you can always find someone chatting about something from computers to cables to radio's in general. I am just honored to be part of a community that is so involved in helping each other with the Hobby of Amateur Radio and to be into it with my family. Rich (KJ4INW)

New Ham Does LWRA Net

After having her Ham License for only 1 week, Dana Joyce (KK4JYA) steps into her roll as the NCO for the LWRA Weekly Traders Net and Rag Chew. While this reader mibht be a little biased, I am still very proud of her and all the fine reports she received from the other Hams on the Air. On June 19th, 2012 Dana received 43 checkin's on her very first net and lots of pat's on the back for a job well done. Very Proud of my youngest Hammy. Way to go Dana!!!! Rich (KJ4INW)

Special Bulletin From ARRL Headquarters

The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are
co-sponsoring the annual Military/Amateur Radio Crossband
Communications Test in celebration of the 62nd anniversary of Armed
Forces Day (AFD). Although the actual Armed Forces Day is celebrated
on the third Saturday in May -- May 19 in 2012 -- the AFD
Military/Amateur Crossband Communications Test will be conducted on
May 12 to prevent conflict with the Dayton Hamvention, scheduled for
May 18-20.

The annual celebration features traditional military-to-amateur
crossband communications SSB voice and Morse code tests. These tests
give Amateur Radio operators and short wave listeners an opportunity
to demonstrate their individual technical skills and to receive
recognition from the appropriate military radio station for their
proven expertise. QSL cards will be provided to those stations
making contact with the military stations.

Military-to-amateur crossband operations will take place on the
dates and time in UTC on the frequencies listed for each station.
Voice contacts will include operations in single sideband voice
(SSB). Some stations, depending on propagation and staffing, may not
operate the entire period. Participating military stations will
transmit on selected military MARS frequencies and listen for
Amateur Radio stations in the amateur bands. The military station
operator will announce the specific amateur band frequency being
monitored. Duration of each voice contact should be limited to 1-2
minutes.

The schedules and frequencies of participating military stations can
be found in PDF format on the web at,
http://www.netcom.army.mil/MARS/docs/AMC_Test_2012.pdf.

Digifest 2012

This is a friendly reminder to those who love exotic digital modes and/or still don’t have nice RigExpert Antenna Analyzer :-).
The Annual Digifest will be held as usual on the 1st full weekend of June (2012 dates are June 2nd and 3rd ).
This is going to be Digifest’s 5th year and its popularity is growing with last year’s received LOGs number of more than 200.
Peculiarity of this Contest is the great variety of different categories of the participants in 5 digital modes: RTTY 75, BPSK 63, MFSK 16, HELLSCHREIBER, OLIVIA
and the most fair points calculation based on the distance between the stations.
The Contest consists of 3 convenient periods (8 hours each) during the weekend.
To add more adrenalin into this competition a special feature will be offered to those who like competing in real time – online results will be presented on a server.
And, of course, a lot of real nice prizes, mostly RigExpert AA-230 and AA-30 Antenna Analyzers and RigExpert USB Interfaces. All prizes sponsored by RigExpert Ukraine Ltd.
Since the number of the participants is relatively small and the most populated competing area is Europe, the “far away” stations from NA, SA, Africa, Asia and Australia are at great advantage.
From the last years’ experience those stations were the most prize winners. Considering this and also to support growing participation from Europe,
the sponsors “double” the prizes – i.e. separate main prizes are now available both for Europe and for the “rest of the World”.
But wait, that’s not all! For those of you who won’t be able to win “main prize” in respected category, there will be a lot of small gifts, like T-shirts and paper awards.
All the prizes will be mailed to participants’ home addresses.
The results are usually available just 2 weeks after the end of the Contest,
So, lets just meet on the 1st weekend of June and have fun!
Complete rules can be found at http://www.mixw.net/misc/DigiFest/index.html
and http://www.rigexpert.com/index?s=main&f=digifest end http://ut7fp.kiev.ua

FCC is seeking comments

FCC is seeking comments regarding impediments to amateur radio ops. Please take the time and let them know the type of issues you run into. Especially you folks in HOA's.....

Read the Public notice here.

QTH scammer warning

We've seen an alarming increase in the number of scammers utilizing our website (and it seems most other ham radio classified sites, too, based on reports coming in). I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what some of these scammers are doing, in hopes it will better protect you from them, when you are selling equipment on the QTH.com Classifieds at http://swap.qth.com.

 

Common scammer traits:

 

1) They will use some else's callsign, and they will create an email address that contains that callsign, usually with a free email provider like gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. They sometimes pose as foreign callsigns (especially UK and Spain) but recently have been using USA callsigns.

 

2) They will sometimes post "For Sale" ads, but also will sometimes answer "Wanted" ads. Usually the prices are a little too good to be true.

 

3) They will use pictures of equipment they have found on the Internet (they don't really own the equipment).

 

4) They seem to like payments via Western Union (no protection for the buyer), but will also use PayPal (hoping to drain their account before the buyer realizes they have been scammed).

 

5) They seem to know ham radio jargon. For all we know, these scammers are hams, but we can't be sure.

 

6) They are sophisticated enough to use "proxy servers" so their IP address cannot be easily detected. This makes it difficult for us to block the scammers. We are constantly tweaking our filters to block these guys when possible, but it is a constant cat and mouse game.

 

What can you do to protect yourself?

 

* Ask for a phone number and call the person before agreeing on any deal. This is probably the #1 way to expose the rats.

 

* Check to see if the email address they used matches what is listed for that person on their QRZ.com profile. It could be a red flag if there is a mismatch.

 

* Be especially cautious of dealing with foreign hams. Not all foreign hams are scammers, of course! Just be extra careful!!

 

* Never use Western Union. Be very cautious of using Money Orders and Cashier's Checks. PayPal and Credit Cards seem to be the best option, as far as having any buyer protection. Money Orders & Cashier's Checks are perfectly acceptable if you are absolutely sure who you are dealing with.

 

* Read all of my "Safe Trading Tips" at http://chat.qth.com/viewtopic.php?t=12

About 100,000 ads are placed each year in the QTH.com Classifieds, and only a tiny, tiny fraction wind up being fraudulent. I do not want to scare you into thinking that it is unsafe to trade online. Rather, I simply want to arm you with knowledge, so that you will be able to sniff out the bad guys, and stay safe.

 

73 - Scott KA9FOX

QTH.com Ham Radio Classifieds

http://swap.qth.com

2012 MS Bike ride

As we are all aware, The 2012 MS Bike ride is right around the corner. As in years past, any Licensed Amateur is welcome to assist. If you would like to participate, please go to https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups&hl=en#!forum/bikems-central-florida

They can always use extra radio ops.

Lakeland ARC special event station

The Lakeland Club will be running a special event for Sun-n-Fun this Saturday 3/31/2012.

Special Event Station on Saturday, March 31st

Our Club will be operating a special event station on Saturday, March 31st, 2012 at the Lake Parker Park (28.080912, -81.945696) in Lakeland, FL in celebration of the 38th Annual Fly-In and Expo!

We will be operating on the following frequencies:

• 28.370 MHz
• 21.320 MHz
• 18.155 MHz
• 14.280 MHz

The hours of operation will be:

• Start: 0930 EDT
• End: 1530 EDT (depending on band conditions)

We will be issuing a certificate per the guidelines defined on page 95 of the March 2012 issue of QST.

We look forward to contacting you on the air!

New Rules for 5 MHz (60 Meters) To Go Into Effect March 5

On November 18, the FCC released a Report and Order (R&O), defining new rules for the 60 meter (5 MHz) band. These rules are in response to a Petition for Rulemaking (PRM) filed by the ARRL more than five years ago and a June 2010 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). In the February 3 edition of the Federal Register, the FCC announced that these new rules will go into effect on March 5, 2012.

In summarizing the new rules, the FCC explained that the new rules amend the current rules to facilitate more efficient and effective use by the Amateur Radio Service of five channels in the 5330.5-5406.4 kHz band (the 60 meter band): “Specifically, and consistent with our proposals in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding, the Commission replaces one of the channels with a less encumbered one, increases the maximum authorized power amateur stations may transmit in this band and authorizes amateur stations to transmit three additional emission designators. The Commission also adopts an additional operational rule that prohibits the use of automatically controlled digital stations and makes editorial revisions to the relevant portions of the Table of Frequency Allocations and our service rules.”

The Amateur Radio Service in the United States has a secondary allocation on 60 meters. Only those amateurs who hold General, Advanced or Amateur Extra class licenses may operate on this band. Amateur stations must not cause harmful interference to -- and must accept interference from -- stations authorized by any administration in the fixed service, as well as mobile (except aeronautical mobile) stations authorized by the administrations of other countries.