ARRLWeb: Riley Reiterates Recommendation to "Lighten Up" on Ham Bands

Special Counsel in the FCC Spectrum Enforcement Division Riley Hollingsworth advised Dayton Hamvention FCC Forum attendees -- and the amateur community -- to chill. Here, he addresses an ARRL EXPO 2007 audience at Hamvention.

(L-R) Bill Cross, W3TN, of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and Riley Hollingsworth, at the 2007 Dayton Hamvention FCC Forum.

The FCC Forum typically is among the best attended at Hamvention.

NEWINGTON, CT, May 31, 2007 -- FCC Special Counsel in the Spectrum Enforcement Division Riley Hollingsworth's main message at the Dayton Hamvention® 2007 FCC Forum may not have been a new one. But it's certainly one he believes bears repeating -- at least until it starts cutting through the QRM and QRN that pervade more communication channels than our Amateur Radio bands.

"Well, you could have gone to the flea market, but you came to church instead," Hollingsworth quipped to his Dayton forum audience. "I've got you now."

Hollingsworth repeated what for many Riley Watchers has become a familiar refrain: That the Amateur Radio community needs to "lighten up" on the air. Acknowledging that he was repeating himself, Hollingsworth urged his audience to take his message more to heart. "All of you can learn from each other," he said, "and you need to work together more and show a little more respect for your diverse interests and for the Amateur Service as a whole. It isn't about you. It isn't about enforcement. It's about Amateur Radio."

As radio amateurs take to the airwaves, he continued, they need to decide what's most important -- the best interests of ham radio or their ego, pride or perceived "rights."

"I realize I may be preaching to the choir here, but on the air you need to be more cooperative and less argumentative -- and I need you to take this message with you when you go home," he continued.

As a "homework assignment," Hollingsworth encouraged his listeners to read the "It Seems to Us . . ." editorial, "Most Effective Use," by ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, in May 2007 QST. In his commentary, Sumner stressed that interference occurring as a side effect of legitimate Amateur Radio activities in crowded bands "is simply a fact of life" and that it's "unfair to your fellow amateurs to assume that every instance of interference you may encounter is a hostile act."

Hollingsworth offered good news and bad news. "The good news: Nothing is wrong with Amateur Radio," he allowed. "It is a good service that is showing its value to the public on a daily basis."

The bad news, he asserted, making a comparison to "road rage," is "that there is an element of Amateur Radio that too often reflects present society generally."

Hollingsworth urged all radio amateurs to cooperate more and depend less on the FCC to solve their operating issues.

"We live in a rude, discourteous, profane, hotheaded society that loves its rights, prefers not to hear about its responsibilities, and that spills over into the ham bands," he said.

Hollingsworth's bottom line: Be flexible in your frequency selection and make regular use of the "big knob" on the front of your transceiver to shift to any of the "thousands of frequencies and hundreds usable at any given time of day or year" as necessary to avoid problems. "The world is ugly enough -- don't add to it," Hollingsworth advised.

"We can enforce our rules, but we can't enforce kindness and courtesy or common sense," Hollingsworth concluded. "And a very wise person, who happens to be standing to my left [FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau staffer Bill Cross, W3TN -- Ed] once told me: 'You can't regulate stupid.' If we could, we'd be working for the United Nations instead of the FCC."

In his comments, Cross singled out the controversy that erupted recently over fears that automatically controlled digital stations would overwhelm the amateur bands, eclipsing most other modes. Cross cited §97.7 of the rules, which requires each amateur station to have a control operator and, in essence, to employ a "listen-before-transmit" protocol."

When a station is under automatic control, regardless of the transmission mode, Cross explained, the control operator need not be at the control point, but must employ station control devices and procedures while transmitting that ensure compliance with the FCC rules and does not cause harmful interference to ongoing communications of other stations.