I recently read a posting on eHam where an amateur (a Life Member of the ARRL) complained to the ARRL leadership about a particular FCC rulemaking. Now mind you, we all tend to gripe when things don't go our way, but this struck me as kind of odd. Just out of curiosity, I proceeded to check the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System. The amateur in question hadn't filed a comment when the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was posted. In fact, I can't find any comments filed by him on any rulemaking proceeding.

That's a real shame... he is missing out on some great opportunities to make his voice heard. He obviously had the time to write to the ARRL after the fact, and then took the time to draft a posting on eHam. But he didn't take the time to do what truly mattered by sending a message to the FCC. Now he is relegated to "crying over spilled milk".

Why did this happen? I think many hams are lulled into a false sense of security and think that the so-called "danger" isn't really as bad as it's made out to be -- or even worse there is the "somebody else will do it" attitude. Like in the above example, they believe that sending a check every year to the ARRL is enough. Nothing can be further from the truth. The ARRL shouldn't be called upon to bear the burden of presenting our ideas when it is so easy and painless to do as an individual. Sometimes one unified voice is good. More often than not, many tiny voices are better. But all too often we only get concerned after the fact and then our efforts are, well, useless.

Hams need to stop being procrastinators and realize that if we don't speak for ourselves, no one else will. I know a couple of hams that are both ARRL and NRA (Nation Rifle Association) members. It's interesting to see that the NRA can say, "Write your Representatives" and sure enough, the letters will be in the mail the next day. Oddly though, when the ARRL says "Write your Representatives" or "Send a comment to the FCC"... nothing ever happens. The "somebody else will do it" attitude kicks in!

Here's some numbers. So far, in the Broadband over Power Line Inquiry, approximately 625 hams have posted (and I suspect my estimate is high). That amounts to one-tenth of one percent of the US ham population. In the last Section Manager election in my state, 11% of the ham population in the state voted (amounting to probably 55% of the ARRL members if my estimates are correct)... and this was a hotly disputed contest!

So what are we waiting for? It's easy to "Monday Morning Quarterback". It's easy to "let someone else do it" and then criticize the outcome. And don't be lulled into letting your money do the talking for you... make a constructive contribution of your thoughts to enhance amateur radio. Write an article, make a comment to the FCC, give a presentation at a club meeting... you as an individual will be all the better for it, and so will ham radio.

Look at it this way... before someone gripes about a particular rulemaking, or the state of ham radio in general, he or she should ask a simple question: "Have I done anything to change this outcome?" If the answer is no, then with all due respect, you don't have much of a leg to stand on, do you?

Steve, KE4MOB