I spent most of last night getting the full release off the web at:
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/headline/fcc96326.html
where the announcement was which pointed to the actual final order from the
FCC. The file is over 900K and is in WordPerfect format - that appears to be
the official government word processor as I have seen it as a required format
for documentation submittals.
Note this is a FINAL Report and Order. It takes effect August 6, 1996, and
becomes part of the station operating requirements on that date for ALL FCC
licensed operating stations in the range of 0.3 to 100,000 MHz. The Amatuer
Radio Service stations are given till January 1, 1997 to demonstrate
compliance.
It is 105 pages and I have read all of it at least once.
I have read a lot of government documents and this one is amazingly well
reasoned. I don't like what is says, but as an engineer with responsibilities
for commercial rf operations, I understand their comments and logic.
This came about because of a congressional mandate as noted in footnote 4
of the Report and Order:
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was enacted on February 8, 1996,
requires that: "Within 180 days after the enactment of this Act, the
Commission shall complete action in ET Docket 93-62 to prescribe and make
effective rules regarding the environmental affects of radio frequency
emissions."
One hundred and eighty days is up on August 6th, 1996.
The FCC has avoided doing this for a long time. The orginal docet
item was three years ago in 1993, but it was inevitable.
Unfortunately they had to bow to the EPA when it came to selecting a
standard and went with the NCRP Standard rather than the ANSI/IEEE standard
which is newer. In the frequency range of interest to amateurs, there is
almost no difference and where there is i.e.. effects of modulation
characteristics, they went with the ANSI/IEEE standard.
The ARRL tried to get an exemption for amateur operators from doing field
strength calculations, but was specifically told to provide the charts and
tables necessary for amateurs to do them. They have also added 5 questions
to each of the first three written tests that an amateur has to pass.
The FCC did us a favor by allowing us to consider our property line as the
limit for controlled exposure. They could have just as easily said that we
had to comply with the uncontrolled exposure limits - in which case my HT
would be permanently limited to low power - about 1/2 watt. They also cut
us some room by going with a 50 watts PEP transmitter output power for most
operations without calculation.
The FCC are specifically going to be expanding FCC information available to
define operating characteristics in either an update to the OST 65 bulletin
or a separate bulletin. I would expect the ARRL technical staff and
volunteers to be very active in offering assistance. I am sure we will see
lots more on this in the future.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 specifically authorizes a federal
premption of state and local authority with respect to RF exposure levels
for "personal wireless services" types of service i.e. cell phone, PCS,
commercial mobile services etc.. While this preemption is not extended to
the Amateur Radio Service or the broadcast industry, the ruling
specifically states that the FCC feels the RF exposure limits in the FCC
regulations are appropriate. The ruling leaves the door open for future FCC
preemption if a pattern of state and local regulation develops which
hinders operation of FCC licensed stations, especially if these local
limitations are not based on legitimate technically supported health and
safety issues.
Unfortunately this is going to make HF contest in the high power modes
operation available only to the landed gentry.
On the plus side, for those of you who have been wanting harder tests, we
have a whole lot of technical material on ERP, EIRP, transmision line loss,
antenna gain patterns, E-field, H-field, power density, time averaged
power, additional federal regulations and other items to challenge the new
licensees.
This ruling changes the landscape for contest operators and anyone running
over 50 watts. Fortunately, we have the tools, (thanks to people like Brian
Beasley) and we will acquire the knowledge necessary to survive and
continue to operate in the Amateur Radio Service.
de n0yvy steve
>From kj5yf@wt.net (Larry Johnson) Wed Aug 7 10:57:55 1996
From: kj5yf@wt.net (Larry Johnson) (Larry Johnson)
Subject: RF Exposure...
Message-ID: <BMSMTP8394116154kj5yf@pop3.wt.net>
Gee...I thought I would go out and see if I could find a copy of the ANSI C95.1
report referenced in the FCC R&O...and I did find the info. You may wish to
order a copy, if you do, you can order electronically via the ANSI web page.
However, don't think I'm going to order it...heh...the $100 price tag for the
report is a little steep for me....
Designation: ANSI/IEEE C95.1-1991
Title: Safety Levels with Respect to Human Exposure to Radio Frequency
Electromagnetic Fields, 3 kHz to 300 GHz
(revision and redesignation of ANSI C95.1-1982)
Health and safety standard?: Yes
Published by ANSI?: No
Price: 100.00
* Larry Johnson
* KJ5YF @ WT.NET
* Houston, Texas U.S.A.
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