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Glenn Baxter, ex-K1MAN, SK; Engaged in Protracted Enforcement Battle with FCC

05/14/2017

Glenn Baxter, ex-K1MAN, of Belgrade, Maine, died on May 5. He was 75. In 2014, Baxter ultimately lost his battle to retain his Amateur Extra class license when the FCC dismissed his long-standing renewal application, citing an unpaid $10,000 forfeiture stemming from violations over a period extending back several years. The K1MAN call sign now is held by an individual living in New York.

“Anyone filing an application [who] is found to be delinquent in debt owed to the FCC and who fails to pay the debt in full or make other satisfactory arrangements in a timely manner will have their application dismissed,” the FCC said in a Notice of Dismissal appended to Baxter’s Universal Licensing System (ULS) file. “Because you have failed to resolve this matter timely, your application is hereby dismissed.” Baxter had been licensed since 1956.

Over a period of decades, Baxter — a licensed professional engineer in Maine and Illinois — ran afoul of the FCC stemming from complaints of malicious interference resulting from his program-length AM transmissions under the flag of his self-styled American Amateur Radio Association. Baxter’s transmissions included, news, interviews, commentaries, and rebroadcasts of ham radio news produced by others, including ARRL, with which Baxter also had feuded.

In 2012, the US District Court for the State of Maine ruled in the FCC’s lawsuit to collect Baxter’s fine, initially $21,000. Writing for the Court, Chief US District Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. agreed with the FCC on the first two counts — willful or repeated failure to respond to FCC requests for information, and willful or malicious interference — and granted summary judgments to the FCC in the amounts of $3,000 and $7,000, respectively. The Court declined to rule on the third issue — communications in which an amateur station licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest — saying that issues of material fact remained to be litigated in the Court. 



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