NOTE: I think this discussion should be moved to the more appropriate
rfi@contesting.com list and now invite folks to follow it there.
Since the political hacks on the 911 Commission have opened the
doors to all manner of ridiculous nonsense in their headlong
rush to self-aggrandize and to mount partisan political attacks
why should not Amateur Radio demand our "15 minutes of fame"?
Someone from the ARRL should insist on an opportunity to
describe the many ways that Amateur Radio fills-the-gap in
critical emergency communications, during 911 and thousands
of other crises and disasters.
The 911 Commission hacks have asked why there were communications
failures, some organizational, some technological. Someone
from the ARRL could readily address the common failures of
public service communications in disasters and why and how
Amateur Radio is the best qualified resource to fill-the-gap.
Perhaps someone in the communications bureaucracy will catch
a clue and think before promulgating foolish and short-sighted
regs? And maybe public service decisionmakers will become a
little more discerning when listening to the salesmen from
Motorola, et al, and ask harder questions about reliability,
redundancy, and inter-agency compatibility?
I have a dream ... ;-) doc
Cliff KD4GT wrote:
Sometimes it takes a while before the actions of the FCC really come to
light.
An AP news story of 05/20/04 reports that a new Air Force radio system by
Motorola is being tested at Elgin AFB in Florida. Homeowners in the
surrounding area are reporting their garage door openers are no longer
functioning. An FCC spokesperson said that 'IF' the Air Force is operating
within its assigned frequencies then the users of the garage door openers
will have to change theirs.
Hmmm ... the FCC allowed these Part 15 devices to be produced even though
they operate around the 435~436 MHz area. We hams have 420-440MHz on a
'secondary' basis with the US federal government (military) being the
primary user. The FCC is also willing to let the RFID Tag folks crank up the
power well beyond the Part 15 limits in this same area.
How long is it going to be before the BPL or RFID starts interfering with
critical communications and someone dies? Or maybe the FCC will just find a
solution of dropping all those nifty new gizmos into the ham bands? After
all, we are just 'amateurs' and don't really provide any beneficial return
for the bandwidth given to us.
Watching to see how this conflict between the Part 15 garage door openers
and the US military plays out will, at the very least, be interesting.
73 de KD4GT
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Thanks! & 73, doc kd4e
West Central Florida
Drake, Heathkit, Kenwood, TenTec, Yaesu
Radio Life: http://www.gospelcom.net/twr/
Linux-Incompatible hardware is defective!
USA Pres. Election 2004: http://www.rnc.org/
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