FCC Feeling Restructuring's Impact

DAYTON 2000: FCC FEELING RESTRUCTURING'S IMPACT

The FCC's Bill Cross, W3TN.

The impact of restructuring is being felt at the FCC. During the well-attended Dayton Hamvention FCC Forum, Bill Cross, W3TN, of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announced that the Commission already had processed nearly 9200 license upgrades as of May 19--six times the normal flow of applications.

"It appears Advanced class licensees are upgrading in significant numbers," he said. "So are the Technician Plus class licensees." He recommended that experienced amateurs help newcomers to bridge the gap between their new license classes and their sometimes less-than-fully developed operating skills.

"Just like you, newly minted Generals and Extras want to comply with the rules," Cross said. "Just like you, they have invested a lot in getting that signal on the air, although it may be on the wrong frequency. And just like you, a correction that starts with 'you idiot' isn't going to get the result you want."

Special Counsel for Amateur Radio Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, responds to a question during the FCC Forum. [Rick Lindquist, N1RL]

Cross defended the FCC's action lowering of the Morse code requirement to 5 WPM. He also credited the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators' Question Pool Committee with "an amazing job" of revising the question pools in very short order. "They aren't easy questions," he said. "These exams are not 'dumbed down' by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, they're more difficult because the easy questions are gone."

Cross also said the FCC has a copy of its pre-April 15 database to keep track of which Technicians have HF privileges as a result of having taken a Morse code exam in the past.

FCC Special Counsel for Amateur Radio Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth also addressed the FCC Forum. "Nothing about restructuring bothers me from an enforcement standpoint," he said. "We have a basically good set of rules" that the FCC is willing to enforce. While insisting he did not want to trample on anyone's First Amendment rights, Hollingsworth urged amateurs to present a good face to the nonamateur community by maintaining a high level of on-the-air decorum. "We're being listened to all the time," he said. "So we have to think about what kind of impression we're making."

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