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(Huntingtown, MD ) As a result of the FCC’s refusal to look more closely at the accuracy and validity of their ULS data the Personal Radio Assn. Inc, a Maryland not-for-profit corporation has decided to vet a sampling of the two-hundred plus names culled from the public database records of the FCC.  PRA Enforcement Team members began looking at the data on Friday August 3.

The FCC maintained that the attention address field was merely a way for citizens to have their mail sent to another convenient place like a business address. The PRA understood that well before writing their  February 2007 letter to the Bureau Chief of the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. The PRA had already found in its reports to the FCC Enforcement Bureau other licensees using the refer to address field were in fact non-individual licensees - enough to be concerned.

The very first licensee vetted by the PRA on August 3, 2007 was in fact a business owner that had obtained a license for bubble-pack radios to be used at his business.  He was a manufacturer with a large plant. A PRA member drove to the licensee’s commercial address and interviewed the licensee of record. He didn’t have to speak with our representative but did so after hearing what the PRA representative had to say.

This licensee was unaware, despite the Certification warnings on the FCC ULS,  that business users were not eligible to use  the General Mobile Radio Service.  The PRA member suggested MURS as a better alternative and the licensee agreed to use his personal GMRS license for his family activities. The PRA made a friend and validated on the first attempt that the FCC’s assertion continued to be erroneous and perhaps even a rush to judgement.

The FCC was notified of this contact and the PRA assured the FCC  that the PRA would  contact licensees across the country to verify licenses were obtained for personal use and not for non-individual licensees.  The FCC would be notified of the final results.

In most data collection work  at least ten percent of records are verified as correct and or checked for consistency, and accuracy. Anyone that collects data and then publishes it for public consumption has that obligation particularly when submitting erroneous data on purpose is a federal offense.

Reaction has been lopsided in favor of the PRA. Only one GMRS licensee, a member of a large repeater group in Southern California, suggested the PRA was “wasting the FCC’s time” and that he hoped the PRA was “proud of” themselves.  Members tended to agree that the PRA had an obligation under its charter to make sure the FCC watched over the ULS process to prevent fraud.

The PRA stand is that yes it took what seemed to be a fairly innocuous and obvious potential problem to the federal agency responsible for collecting the data and suggested they vet the data and then cancel licenses issued in error.  A blanket DENIED was not expected.

The ULS is an automated on-line application process. Persons using the ULS have an enormous amount of legalese to read through. To the non-technical and uninitiated it can be a daunting process from screen to screen. A licensee must first create an FRN and then complete an application while trying to understand the complicated definitions behind all of the questions. The applicant then must complete Form 159 before the license fee can be paid.

The PRA believes there are indeed organizations and/or businesses that applied for and received licenses simply because they didn’t know any better. There may also be those that thought they could pull one over on the FCC and disguise their operations as legitimate to avoid the high cost of commercial licensing. The latter has been a SIGNIFICANT problem to GMRS licensees created by dishonest and unscrupulous radio shops that have placed businesses on GMRS channels and repeater inputs across the country for years without using a license to hide the fraud!  ULS allows potential errors to go both ways in the opinion of the PRA and the FCC needs to deal with it.

You might be one of the small number of licensees contacted by the PRA in this survey of sorts. Help the PRA improve the process for GMRS licensing.