Upping the ante when the FCC fails to do its job.

Short of a writ of mandamus or continually having to get an elected official (usually as equally useless) to tell the FCC to do their jobs here are some ideas.

When the ARRL files comments (publically viewable), they should kindly remind the FCC how long they have done nothing on the matter at hand. For example when I last commented I reminded them we've been waiting since January on the FNPRM for something to come from the comments they solicited. I also reminded them that for the below 30 MHz part we had to get a congress woman involved after screwing around for a decade on the matter.

Use the bulley pulpit. Wayne Green really knew how to get his readers keyed up on new technology in his editorials. Is there a reason the ARRL isn't more frank in their editorial about how unresponsive the FCC is to ham radio? If they can harness even a portion of the ham populus similar to how Wayne did, then imagine even just 100 hams commenting to the FCC. They never seem to encourage their readers to comment to the FCC. There is power in numbers, use it!

Be bold. When you do have a face to face meeting with the FCC, point blank ask them when they next expect to make a decision on the matter at hand. Tell them you'd like to set a schedule to meet bi monthly till the matter is resolved and ask what progess, sticking points etc and with who are at hand each time you meet.

Keep your membership informed on when you'll next meet and what progress was made.

Moving foward

Good to see the ARRL is at least trying occasionally. If they did this more often I'd at least be able to speak more positively about them.

July 11 Notice of Ex Parte Meeting

I like this summary. It's inline with what I have been saying for some time.

The fundamental purpose of the amateur service is to encourage experimentation with radio technologies of all kinds “to contribute to the advancement of the radio art”, to encourage “advancing skills in both communication and the technical phases of the art”, and most importantly, to “expand the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts”.1 Unfortunately, significant aspects of the Part 97 amateur rules no longer provide the basis and flexibility needed to foster experimentation with some of the leading modern techniques. The rules need updating to delete unnecessary provisions and outdated restrictions that impair the core purpose of the service. In short, aspects of the rules constitute an impediment to amateur efforts to attract and teach the next generation of American youth that we rely upon to enhance America’s global competitiveness by continuing America’s leadership in wireless communications technologies.

Now if the league would share what their next move is, I'd likely rejoin. Getting up in the FCC's face once a decade isn't really enough to impress me.

One other thing that remains to be seen is if the ARDC/amprnet POP's will lead to anything productive in terms of new protocols, internal network developments etc. I have this funny feeling it's going to be more of an administrative burden than the latter. For starters there its taking an unsually long time to publicly launch. I mean when it was a one man show, Brian Kantor pulled things off in an impressive turn around time while still working. A plug and play VPN has its place, like for repeater sites, espically as IPv4 addresses shrink and global NAT becomes a headache for ham radio connected applications. But there will also be a subset of people trying to use it from home. And there as of the momement is no real reason for that type of use. So I am concerned it will be used nefariously in those cases. If the internal/intranet aspects of 44net are developed then home use makes sense. I personally like a trust network of sorts where there is an educational barrier to keep out the clueless ones. Besides ham radio should be about learning. How on god's greeen earth is anyone who cannot figure out how to connect to the network right now using IPencap going to ever make any meaningful contribution to the network?

Maybe the ARDC should develop some furthering education classes? People like awards in the contesting area, and the FCC license in reality isn't very technical. We clearly need more technical people in the hobby to help move things forward.

The development of the ARDC foundation and grant giving is the right idea. But in my opinion it sadly hasn't yet managed to put any new technology in the hands of many to truely change ham radio for the better. If they or some other organization could achive something simular to what the Raspberry Pi foundation, I would be thoroughly impressed. How in the heck does ham radio get things manufactured?

In summary the two biggest issues I see for ham radio (with a USA bias) is getting outdated rules changed and getting new technology manufactured. A good start to the latter would be first to identify what we need, i.e. that technology task force idea that I have mentioned before.