Use of Amateur Frequencies for "Business" HamNet thanks Fred Maia, W5YI, for permission to excerpt this Electronic Edition of his W5YI Report. The full ten-page biweekly newsletter is available by mail for $24.50 per year from Fred at Dept. C, PO Box 565101, Dallas, TX 75356-5101. Telephone: 817-461-6443. Samples available for a 2 stamp large SASE. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : AMATEUR RADIO BUSINESS SERVICE? FCC "Bombshell" Would Alter "No-Business Rule" In response to discussions with ARRL officials and a letter from a Michigan amateur, the FCC suggested changes to the "no-business rule" that could have enormous impact on the Amateur Service. Among other changes, the proposal would allow hams to conduct personal and club business over amateur frequencies; to make increased use of amateur spectrum by or for local governments, non-profits and the news media, and would permit payment of teachers to operate amateur stations. Even the long sought after permission to "order pizza" on the air would be granted. Amateurs now provide some communications for others. But they are supposed to refrain from provieding regular organizational or business communications for which landline telephone or cellular systems, business radio frequencies or other services are available. Amateur safety-of-life communications support is permitted, but should stop when the emergency is over and when other radio services should be used - even if the other services would cost money to use. Those traditional policies would end under the new proposal. The FCC has suggested that the League file a Petition for Rulemaking to begin the changes. Key to the concept is that Amateur Radio is supposed to have "excess capacity" - more spectrum than it needs - and that the extra capacity could be opened up for non-amateur or quasi-amateur use. Emergencies would continue to take priority. Regular amateur communications would be classified into nine categories and non-amateur communications would take a secondary status. The suggested changes are intended to reduce the pressure on the FCC from some net, bulletin and phone-patch operators, "swap shops," volunteer groups, marathon organizers, missionaries and organizations who want more liberal rules about what communications are permitted. The lobbying, letter writing and Congressional inquiries on this subject seem to be having an effect. The changes could transform Amateur Radio into more of a "Personal and Business Radio Service." Filing ARRL reports by packet Kim Nothelfer (call sign unknown) of Saginaw, Michigan, asked the FCC about filing ARRL Field Organization reports over amateur packet radio. "The report that I am referring to is called the FSD 212," Nothelfer wrote. "It tells the League how many people are available for volunteer emergency service. Their explanation to me is that it is OK to do so as long as the collected information is mailed to the League and not sent via Amateur Radio. "If this is not all right to do, then would it be OK to send the information from one volunteer to another, the information accumulated, and not sent to the League, -but kept in our state with our emergency coordinator? This would be from one volunteer to another and never sent to the League. "I understand that you cannot go so far as to make a list of the do's and don'ts of Amateur Radio. However, we look to you for clarification on this matter. ... Also, we have to look at the new hams who are coming into packet radio due to the no-code license, I am sure there will be some confusion on their part and we need to help them get started without conflict between the League and 97.113.11 The FCC replied, in part-- "Section SS97.113(a) specifically prohibits an amateur station from transmitting any communication the purpose of which is to facilitate the business or commercial affairs of any party. ...The term "business," in this instance, is used in the broadest context. It includes all types of communications that are intended to facilitate the regular business or commercial affairs of any party, whether individual or organization, whether for profit or not-for- profit, whether charitable or commercial, or whether government or non-government. "...In your case, if amateur service frequencies are used to facilitate the collection or reporting of information for the ARRL, then the amateur service is being used to facilitate the regular business or commercial affairs of the ARRL. The Section SS97.113(a) of the Commission's Rules."use of the amateur service ((some text apparently lost - jt)) Letter kicked off discussions We understand that the Nothelfer letter kicked off a series of meetings between the ARRL and the Commission about the business rule. The result of those meetings was revealed in a speech given by FCC Private Radio Bureau chief Ralph Haller/N4RH, to the ARRL National Convention in Saginaw, Michigan, August 24. Here are the remarks of N4RH: 'We can't help but be impressed with the pioneering work you are doing with your new high-speed systems. Not only are you able to accommodate the influx of new operators, but it appears from what you are telling us, you have an excess capacity. "We understand from your letters and phone,calls that you are anxious that your excess capacity be used to help alleviate the demands being placed on the maritime frequencies, the common carriers, the public safety frequencies, the government systems, the business frequencies, and so on. "The existing absolutely-no-business rule, unfortunately, often stands in the way of your helping out. Its well- meaning purpose is to help preserve the character of the amateur service. It is a device to prevent the exploitation of the amateur service. It does, with all the subtlety of a meat ax! "We know that it is an unpopular rule within the amateur community. Quite frankly, we have always been more than a little uncomfortable with it. As frequency managers, we feel overly bureaucratic when we have to tell you that you must not use your unused amateur service frequencies for non-amateur purposes. "After all, the real anti-exploitation rules are rooted in your respect for the principles for which your frequencies are made available to you, and by your good judgement. ---------------------------- Non-Amateur Communications: Suggestions Based on Requests Secondary Usage Parade logistic support Non-profit organizations Government agencies Public safety agencies Classroom instruction Sell apparatus News media information Club business Personal business NOAA, WWV, etc. Other? "We have suggested to your League Officers, therefore, that they consider the possibility of asking for rule making to allow your excess capacity to be used on a secondary basis for certain non-amateur communications. "This catalog was compiled from your letters and phone calls over the years asking for permission to use the amateur service frequencies for non-amateur communications. "Obviously, your non-amateur communications would have to be limited to only those areas where the FCC regulates communications because of the prohibitions in the International Regulations. Domestically, however, you might use your frequencies to provide logistical support for a parade, race, marathon, or similar gathering; "You might provide communication assistance to a non-profit organization, charitable organization, or public-safety agency. "You might participate more fully in governmental systems like Skywarn; "You might help provide classroom instruction in schools; "You might sell or trade to amateur operators electronic apparatus; "You might provide information to your magazines and newsletters; "You might conduct your radio club business over the air" "You might conduct your personal business, including ordering pizzas; "You might provide information to the news media, including broadcast stations, newspapers and magazines; "You might also rebroadcast the programs from other stations like the NOAA weather, Voice of America and WVW. ---------------------------- Precedence Amateur Service Frequency Usage Suggestion based on Section 97.101 PRIORITY Providing emergency communications PRIMARY Conducting amateur communications SECONDARY Conducting non-amateur communications "Providing emergency communications would continue to have the top precedence. The primary usage of your frequencies, moreover, would continue to be your regular amateur service communications. When, and only when, those two traditional usages are insufficient to completely occupy your bands, the unused frequencies would be available to you on a secondary, non-interference basis, to carry on non-amateur service communications ---------------------------- Providing Emergency Communications From Part 97, Subpart E Operation during a disaster Safety of life Protection of property Station in distress RACES (except drills) "The number one priority is covered by Subpart E in your rule Part 97. For some 42 years, providing emergency communications has been at the very top of the list of purposes of the amateur service in the United States. There would be no changes in these rules. ---------------------------- Amateur Service Communications Primary Usage From Section SS97.503(c) Rules Station operating procedures Radio wave propagation Amateur Radio practices Electrical principles Practical circuits Components Signals and emissions Antennas and feed lines Other? "The primary usage of the amateur service frequencies is also treated in Part 97. This list should look familiar to you. These are the very topics about which you had to learn in order to pass the examinations for your license. Exchanging ideas on how to best operate an amateur station would continue unchanged. ---------------------------- Business Rule Prohibited transmissions [Suggestions based upon Phil Karn/KA9Q letter to QEX and on ARRL.] No amateur operator shall sell a communication service that uses amateur service frequencies. The control operator of an amateur station may accept compensation for periods of time during which the station is transmitting: Morse practice Information bulletins Classroom instruction ---------------------------- "We have been talking with,your representatives about the best way to codify a new rule. This suggestion is based upon a letter that appeared in your OEX magazine. It would simply state that 'No amateur operator shall sell a communication service that uses amateur service frequencies.' 'The exception for WLAW to pay its control operators would continue. It adds the new exception that you want to include for classroom instruction. "The quantity of secondary communications your systems could carry would be determined by several factors. For instance, the excess capacity of your systems in your specific locale would be an important fact or. Providing communications for a race in Alaska is an entirely different situation than it would be if the race were held in a more densely populated area where more stations engage in amateur communications. "This approach may also help solve some of the problems you have been having in managing your high-speed automatically controlled systems. You would be able to transmit, on a secondary basis, the type of messages that gave rise to the unfortunate incident on your packet system earlier this year. "I hope that you will give this suggestion your care ful attention. You could be of great assistance to those in need of better communications, and properly implemented, this approach should have no adverse effect upon what you are now doing.' [End of Haller speech] Comments from Ray Kowalksi on this proposed plan: September 23, 1991 Mr. Fred Maia, Editor W5YI Report Post Office Box 565101 Dallas, Texas 75365-5101 Dear Fred, Although it is now nearly four years since I left the FCC, I still like to keep abreast of developments in the Amateur Radio Service. From time to time since my departure for the private practice of law, I've been able to assist you and others who have retained my services in matters relating to ham radio. I recently learned of a proposal that was floated by Ralph Haller, Chief of the FCC's Private Radio Bureau,at the ARRL National Convention in Saginaw, Michigan on August 24, 1991. Although I have not seen widespread discussion of this proposal, I, for one, view it with alarm. In my view, this proposal contains within it the seeds of destruction of the Amateur Radio Service as we know it. So let me do what I can to get the dialogue going by telling you why I feel the way I do. Undoubtedly, this will be viewed by most of your readers as a contrarian position. There presently exists in the Amateur Radio Service a tension among the principles that dictate the basis and purpose of the Amateur rules. These principles are stated in the very first Amateur rule, Section 97.1 of the FCC's rules. These principles declare that the Amateur Service is at once a hobby, a training ground, a medium of international goodwill, and a source of voluntary noncommercial communications, particularly emergency communications. At times, the implementation of these principles results in conflicts among users as well as among the regulations themselves.This is why I say there is a tension among them. But it is a healthy tension, one that reflects the living and vibrant nature of Amateur radio. The forces favoring one principle may be strengthened by events or fashions of the day, but they never get too far before the forces favoring the other principles combine to rein them in and keep the system in equilibrium. Mr. Haller, however, has made a proposal that will upset the balance. If his proposal becomes law, the voluntary noncommercial communications component would be expanded. Based on my experience, both in and out of government, this expanded component would quickly overwhelm the rest of Amateur Radio. Mr. Haller has proposed that amateur radio frequencies, to the extent that they have EXCESS CAPACITY, be used to support non-amateur communications on a SECONDARY basis and WITHOUT COMPENSATION. Before I go much farther, let me say that Ralph Haller and I are well acquainted. We worked together for many years at the FCC. I believe I know Ralph and I believe he places great value on the Amateur Radio Service and its licensees. Thus I do not believe that he would deliberately make any suggestion that would not be in the best interests of the Service. In fact, I could almost believe he made this suggestion with tongue in cheek, as a way to show the incessant stream of petitioners for this or that exemption from the "no business communications" rule (Section 97.113) the logical outcome of their petitions. However, since he made the suggestion at an FCC Forum, I must conclude he is serious. Mr. Haller envisions amending the Amateur rules to permit amateurs to provide communications assistance to public safety agencies, charitable organizations, schools, news media, governmental agencies and others. Think of it: you could set up and run communications for parades and marathons;conduct club business;even order a pizza on your 2m autopatch, guilt free! As long as the communications made use of excess capacity on Amateur spectrum and did not interfere with the traditional hobby-type and emergency (i.e. disaster, safety of life, protection of property) communications and as long as you did not get paid for it, it would be legal. Judging from the number of requests for waiver of the no- business communications rule I saw when I was at the FCC, I would have to say that this proposal would have a seductive allure for many amateurs. Most amateurs I have met are anxious to donate their time and communications savvy to causes like those mentioned above. (Although some just get an emotional payoff out of playing the role of communicator.) So I don't have to tell you all of the good things that could come out of a proposal like this. But at what price? Like the Sirens'song, this proposal must be resisted, for in this most appealing direction lies shipwreck. First, exactly what is "excess capacity?" I take the term to mean that the Amateurs have more spectrum than they can use for normal Amateur communications either now or in the foreseeable future. Mr. Haller has taken the existence of excess capacity as a given. Is this point conceded by the Amateur Community? If so, it is a dear price to pay in exchange for the weakening of the no-business communications rule. The last time the FCC perceived that the Amateur Service had excess capacity, they removed 2 megahertz of that capacity in General Docket 87-14. Now it appears that the FCC is not even waiting for a spectrum re-allocation proceeding. Rather than moving the excess spectrum to other radio services, it will simply allow the incursion of outsiders into the Amateur Service. Believe me, Fred, once this camel's nose gets under the tent, there's no getting rid of it and there's no stopping the eventual appearance of the head, neck and shoulders. And who are these outsiders? In almost every situation I can think of, they are groups who already have spectrum at their disposal. The federal government has so much spectrum, there are bills in Congress to pry out 200 megahertz of it and distribute it to non-government users. Local governments and public safety entities are eligible in their own land mobile services. Broadcasters and news media have their own relay frequencies. Even ordinary businesses have vast blocks of spectrum available. So why is there so much demand to use Amateur frequencies? Because it's cheap to do, primarily. Ham gear is as good as (if not better than) most land mobile equipment on the market. Yet it is available at a fraction of the cost. Also there are no pesky air time charges for using ham radio, they way there are with cellular calls. Finally, the licensing arrangements are more flexible: all you need is your "house ham" to provide the call sign and you're ready to go! These interests are only too willing to take advantage of the good nature and general willingness of hams to be of service whenever they can. They have found a way around a shortage of funds or an internal bureaucracy. The hams, for their part, think they are helping a worthy cause. But if you look deeper, you see that they are subsidizing an effort that could, if it needed to, provide its own communications. Next, what about "secondary" communications? This is a term of art that means the communications may not cause harmful interference to communications that are "primary" in the band and are not protected from harmful interference from those primary communications. (See Section 2.104(d)(4) of the FCC's rules.) This is a nice concept, but it is difficult to enforce. As a practical matter, there are no communications police readily available to protect the rights of the primary communicators in any given instance. In other words, the protection of traditional amateur communications achieved by relegating non- amateur communications to secondary status is largely illusory. It is much like saying cellular communications are private, because there is a law against monitoring them. Finally, let me see if I have this straight: the Amateurs would let everybody else use their frequencies, even for commercial, profitable purposes such as broadcasting, but what makes it legal is that the Amateurs will not receive any monetary compensation. I would make this deal every day for my land mobile clients, if I could! Spectrum is so scarce, we do not care where it comes from or on what basis. And the price is right. Undoubtedly many good causes will come forward in favor of Mr. Haller's idea. The problem is that there is no way to draw the line and allow only the "good causes" to take advantage of relaxed no-business communications rules. If one ham can coordinate a parade, then another ham can coordinate a professional golf tournament. If one ham can assist police patrols, another ham can coordinate plant security. If one ham can order a pizza on the way home from the kids' soccer game, another ham can check for messages on the way back from a sales call. In short, you cannot get just a little bit pregnant. The flexibility already contained in rule Section 97.113 and the entire Subpart E of the FCC's rules, which is devoted to emergency communications, is already very broad. Parades, races, marathons and other public gatherings already have relief. So do swap meets and news events. There is even an exemption for space shuttle communications. These rules are flexible enough to allow most of the worthwhile communications that hams are interested in providing. The wholesale abolition of the business barrier is as bad as the wholesale prohibition of business communications, which, as we can see, is not as strict as Mr. Haller makes it out to be. Massive changes are afoot in the world of two-way communications. Mr. Haller's land mobile staff just initiated PR Docket 91-170, the so- called "spectrum refarming" proceeding, which has the potential to completely revise the land mobile communications regulatory framework in order to free up spectrum to support developing technologies. Do you think Mr. Haller's idea to use ham radio to support business communications is coincidence? Politically, this should be a time of spectrum vigilance for Trojan horse proposals. If there is excess capacity on the ham bands, the service needs to fill that capacity with more hams, not business users. Because, Fred, there are more of them than there are of you. Think about it. Very truly yours, /s/ Raymond A. Kowalski Interesting reading is it not?