From: "Richard Bell" 
Subject: RE: [drakelist] Amateur Radio is second class


"Richard Bell"  made an utterence
to the drakelist gang
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Thanks for the correction.

I my haste really intended to state that the commission members were
appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate.



 -----Original Message-----
From: 	owner-drakelist{at}www.zerobeat.net
[mailto:owner-drakelist{at}www.zerobeat.net]  On Behalf Of Scott Prather
Sent:	Sunday, October 31, 2004 6:04 PM
To:	Drake List
Subject:	RE: [drakelist] Amateur Radio is second class


"Scott Prather"  made an utterence
to the drakelist
gang
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Richard-As I understand it, the FCC is actually part of the Legislative
branch, since they report to Congress.  The NTIA (which is part of the
Department of Commerce) is in the Executive branch.

I've been watching this thread for some time now, and I think it's important
that we keep the BPL proceeding in perspective.  First of all, BPL could
have been deployed under Part 15 without any action from the FCC whatsoever.
The reasons that the industry brought this to the Commission were: 1) They
wanted the conducted power limit in Part 15 eliminated and 2) The BPL
industry wanted to raise the radiated limit in Part 15.

After it was all said and done: 1) The Part 15 conducted power limit was
eliminated for BPL, 2) The radiated limit in Part 15 was retained, 3) BPL
equipment had to be listed in a publicly-available database to assist with
interference mitigation, 4) BPL equipment had to be certified rather than
verified and 5) BPL equipment had to include remote notching and remote
shutdown capabilities.  In short, the BPL industry came away from this with
far more regulation than when they went in, and the only technical gain was
the elimination of the conducted power limit.

Throughout this proceeding, I filed six and seven page comments and reply
comments during both the NOI and the NPRM, for a total of four filings.  I
contacted my senators and my representative.  The fact that the BPL industry
is being held to more stringent set of interference mitigation standards
than existed previously is a testament to all the work that many in the
amateur community contributed.  It certainly wasn't the ideal outcome for
amateur radio, but it was far more favorable to us than it could have been.

I was disappointed to see that amateur radio had essentially become a
"second class citizen" in the HF spectrum as well.  However, it was
encouraging to see that two of the Commissioners are on the official record
as being concerned about the amateur community's susceptibility to
interference from BPL and the need for prompt interference resolution in the
amateur bands even though we don't fall into the protected status of other
HF services.

Scott
N7NB



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-drakelist{at}www.zerobeat.net
[mailto:owner-drakelist{at}www.zerobeat.net]On Behalf Of Richard Bell
Sent: Sunday, 31 October, 2004 07:17
To: Drake List
Subject: RE: [drakelist] Amateur Radio is second class



"Richard Bell"  made an utterence
to the drakelist
gang
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think we all need to remember that the FCC is part of the Executive branch
of our Federal government.  That means the ultimate boss of the commission
is the President.  I honestly believe we need to begin with the President
(and I am not choosing sides at this point) to make our position known.

Granted some lower level aide will probably see the letters and either route
them to the FCC or more probably the large circular file.  But, he will keep
a log of incoming correspondence that his boss should be reviewing to get a
sense of the public's reaction to public policy.

We should also be contacting our  respective members of Congress (House and

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