unfortunately I suspect a lot of hams either don't think it's that big a
deal, are not HF operators and don't think they have to care about it, or
think someone else will take care of it.
It's too late to set this up now (or maybe not) but perhaps ARRL should
consider setting up a grass roots ham organization like what the NRA has. I
understand any time some new proposed gun regulation looks like it might
have legs, the NRA calls, faxes, emails its members who respond by calling,
and writing legeslators. If we assume BPL won't be the last massive
widespread attempted invasion of our spectrum allocations it might be wise
for someone at ARRL to write a tutorial in QST on how to comment to FCC,
what the process is, etc. so we don't have these botched filings, and set up
a network involving the membership. It would work like this: Members who
wish to volunteer, would be placed on a contact list with their preferred
communication--it might be phone no., email addr., postal addr., fax no.,
whatever. Everyone would be assigned specific legeslators at all levels
depending on the particular threat. so for example since I live in
Illinois, I'd have on my list the IL congressman from my district, senator
etc. with their phone nos., email and postal addrs. and so on, along with
the FCC. When needed, we'd all get the message to contact these people,
with a suggested text or we could make up our own with it as a guide. NRA
does something like this and it is quite effective I understand. While we
don't have their numbers, we might get several thousand responses instead of
a few hundred, and more important, they would be sent to the right people
and filed correctly because we'd be more coordinated, organized and have
better instructions. just a thought.
Rob Atkinson
K5UJ
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