 |
The PRA Personal Radio Services FCC Enforcement FAQ Updated May 8, 2006 |
| The following are questions that may come to mind about the Personal Radio Association's interest in increased GMRS enforcement by the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau. Some are statements actually made to or to others about the PRA and it's efforts. You may wish to read through this FAQ if you are the subject of a complaint or if you want to know more about the enforcement process. Are you considered an unlicensed commercial Intruder? These pages at PopularWireless.com can also provide you with more information. Does the Association or do its members make bogus complaints? No. PRA members do not make statements or complaints to the Federal Communications Commission they believe to be false. It is a crime to make false statements to the Commission. Complaints are made based upon observations that would cause a reasonable person to believe a violation of Part 95 of the FCC GMRS Rules has occurred. No one is out to get anybody. Persistent rules violations tend to attract attention whether desired or not. What gives the PRA the right to declare themselves a watchdog group and report other licensees to the FCC? The GMRS FCC Rules allow any licensee to contact the FCC about the GMRS and this includes rules violations. FCC R&R 95.117. The Personal Radio Association was created after YEARS of frustration with the FCC Enforcement Bureau and the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau's inability to manage our tiny frequency allocation on their own. The PRA and its members want to see enforcement where virtually none has been for tens of years. GMRS has never had a membership organization until now. You can read more about how we came about from the main page of our website. The formation of the PRA was a logical progression given the circumstances the entire service faces. As a an organized group of licensees we have a right to speak out and to point out FCC Rules violations as we encounter them. Do you submit audio with each complaint? Members have submitted audio files on CD-ROM or audio tapes for the Commission to review. Why doesn't the member contact a violator before involving the FCC? Sometimes this happens, but it it is not required. Many licensees have found that prior contact is often futile. Contact prior to a complaint has even provoked malicious interference, threats, telephone harassment, and other forms of intimidation up to and including property damage. In one case, a member was contacted after a complaint was made. The subject of the complaint was very cordial and listened intently with great interest. The reply sent to the FCC was unflattering, threatening, and suggested the Association had dark ulterior motives. One cannot accurately judge the reaction of another that becomes the subject of interest in a rules violation before, during, or after an investigation by the Commission. It is best, and the Commission has agreed with us, that rules violation complaints are best handled by the Commission. How are complaints made? Anyone can complete a PRA complaint form and send it to the Commission. The Commission will send the Association a copy of any complaint that did not come through our office. We will contact the originator to help make sure the complaint is accurate and complete. We also want to make sure the Commission does not receive frivolous complaints under our name. Anyone can also send a complaint on their own letterhead to the same FCC address. This address is in Part 95 of the FCC GMRS Rules. Is it possible there are reasonable explanations for some behaviors? That's a leading question that begets an answer. What we can say is that when the FCC writes a letter to the the subject of a complaint the subject must explain the situation from his/her own point of view and be cognizant of the nature of the complaint when doing so. Someone may have to admit to a rules violation. Often that can clear up issues. Here is an example made up just for this question. Let's say the owner of a busy GMRS repeater in a big town gets a complaint of possible unlicensed operation. No individual call signs are ever heard just a CW ID and individual unit numbers. When the complainant contacts a person on the repeater to ask for permission to use it or to ask about call signs he/she is chased away saying the repeater is private property. To the ear of the complainant something is amiss. The owner of the repeater may respond to the FCC admitting that his users don't ID as required. (Had they ID'd as required and simply explained the repeater was closed no complaint would have been made. No big deal. That's the way things are. The explanation means the failure to ID behavior has to be changed. It's up to the FCC what to do next, but we hope a warning is issued and everyone learns from the situation. Does the PRA have sinister ulterior motives? No. We want all licensees to obey the rules and for everyone to enjoy the GMRS as well as MURS, FRS, CB - all the Personal Radio Services. To that end, we support the FCC's current method of enforcement. So far, the FCC is primarily contacting people by letter for explanations and to seek compliance with rules rather than using on-site inspections of radio facilities and initiating formal actions. We think that's fair. Asking for a polite explanation by mail is certainly less intimidating than having to let an FCC agent in to inspect your radio station and subsequently receiving a Notice of Violation or a fine. The FCC Enforcement Bureau ultimately decides what action is taken on a complaint. They decide whether a letter or inspection is the primary method of contact. The Association does not presuppose or encourage a specific contact method or complaint outcome. Do you submit audio with each complaint? Members have submitted audio files on CD-ROM or audio tapes for the Commission to review. What gives the FCC the right to require a response to their letter regarding my radio operations? The following paragraph is from a typical enforcement letter. Notice the warning against false statements. Section 308(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 8 308(b), gives the Commission the authority to obtain information from applicants and licensees about the operation of their station and their qualifications to remain a licensee. Accordingly, you are requested to respond to this office within 20 days stating in detail what action. you intend to take to bring your system into compliance with the rules. In an inquiry of this type we are required to notify you that a willfully false or misleading reply constitutes a separate violation made punishable under United States Code Title 18, Section 1001. Why now? Why after many years are my actions being second guessed? Why the complaint against me? There has been little to no enforcement over most of the country in the GMRS. Some licensees have simply done as they pleased and gotten away with violating certain rules for a very long time. Violations may have been willful or out of ignorance. Interest in GMRS has grown. New families are using the service every day. The number of licensees is up. Certain behaviors that are forbidden by rule are getting in the way of the mutual cooperation to avoid interference that is required of all licensees. The PRA was formed by licensees that have had enough of the bedlam, unlicensed commercial use, the illegal re-broadcasting of public safety and NOAA weather systems, beacon CW identifiers, and operation by groups that have seized channels for their own use. The history behind the PRA and the growing interest in enforcement by licensees is documented at more than one Internet site. This interest led to the formation of a nation-wide membership organization that has the interests of the service as its primary objective. What kind of behaviors will likely produce a complaint against a GMRS licensee? Here is partial list:
What kind of behaviors will likely produce other complaints in the GMRS? Here is a partial list:
Is my Amateur Radio license in jeopardy if the FCC finds me in violation of GMRS rules? Yes. The Commission has the right and the obligation to determine if any current Commission licensee under lawful scrutiny has the requisite qualifications to remain a Commission licensee. Amateur Radio licenses can be revoked, renewals delayed, re-testing can be ordered etc. The FCC may also apply this thinking to licenses held by persons in other services. How can I avoid a complaint? Read the GMRS FCC Rules and Regulations. Copies of the Rules are available at various places on the Internet including this private site.this Federal Government site. and at the Personal Radio Steering Group website Some who have maintained GMRS systems for years have no apparent idea what the rules say regarding the behaviors that attracted FCC attention to their operations. They are actually incredulous that THEY would be considered a violator. It's a great example of not being able to see the forest because of the trees. The Rules are there to be read and to be followed. What things should I take into consideration when responding to a complaint? Here is a partial list:
May I call the PRA regarding the complaint? Are you the subject of an FCC GMRS complaint made by a member of the Personal Radio Association? Please understand that if you have received a letter from the FCC that is based on a complaint from a member of the Association and you contact us you are still required to follow the instructions received in the FCC letter. When you call the PRA we can read you the complaint if we have a copy available but we cannot discuss any potential outcome, revise the complaint based on information from you, or negotiate for you with the FCC. The fastest and easiest way to resolve an issue is to respond as requested to the FCC Enforcement Bureau. All statements that you make to the PRA about the complaint are submitted as supplemental documentation to the Commission. Do you want to see the subjects of complaints cited or fined? No. When representatives of the PRA met with Kris Ann Monteith, the Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau, in October of 2005 we told her and Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth, that we were interested in the continued usefulness of the GMRS to licensees and that we were not out to seek Notices of Violation. A letter asking about whether violations have occurred is not a Notice of Violation. Letters sent by Mr. Hollingsworth are steps below an NOV or an official citation. We said the PRA is primarily interested in seeking observance of the FCC Rules for the GMRS across the board. The ultimate decision to issue an NOV or fine someone is up to the Commission, but that is not our intent when a member files a complaint. We believe that the Commission heard our concerns on this point and will weigh all of the issues in the complaint before making any decisions resulting in formal actions. Rules compliance and the continued usability by personal licensees is our agenda. Our public service organization/public safety organization is the subject of a complaint. Why are you picking on us? We're not. Examine your actions and look specifically at the complaint made against your group. Surprising as it may seem, PRA members have encountered groups that rebroadcast public safety and NOAA broadcasts on GMRS, and apparently allow unlicensed use by friends, public safety or other personnel, set up highway call boxes on GMRS, conduct public safety business, declare communications emergencies when none exist, hold long membership nets on the air, or make one-way long-drawn-out announcements about what they hear on their police scanners. GMRS licensees wanting to share the tiny GMRS allocation report that some groups camp on frequencies openly discouraging others from using simplex or setting up another repeater declaring this our emergency frequency! Others commandeer multiple channels anticipating bad weather and chase away other licensees telling them, "This is an emergency Skywarn frequency!" Some have gone to extremes to make other licensees believe their repeater systems are vast and sophisticated simply by changing to another tone-coded squelch on the same repeater! They then claim they are on another radio repeater at another geographic location. Some of the encountered behaviors have bordered on the bizarre and most all of the behaviors are intended to discourage others from channel sharing. Ask yourself if your organization fits into any of these categories. Attempts to contact and ask for cooperation toward avoiding mutual interference as required by FCC Rules are often ignored by the larger "buff" groups. The buff groups argue that GMRS is for emergency communications and not trivial family communications. People that should know better engage in these activities because of who and what they are and not because they are interested in the GMRS as it is defined in the FCC Rules. These groups can be everything from civilian organizations to public safety agencies. GMRS frequencies are not emergency frequencies, public safety frequencies, weather frequencies, fire frequencies, or police frequencies. There are grandfathered GMRS licensees at some jurisdictions but even these agencies should by now want to consider licensing on a coordinated public safety channel in order to avoid interference from a walkie-talkie carried by child walking past a police or fire station. Some public safety groups have actually argued that since they are affiliated with police or fire they do not have to use call signs or operate with a GMRS license. This is false. Public safety agencies are only allowed to operate without formal authorization on frequencies ALLOCATED to public safety and only on a low-power non-interference basis. GMRS is not included. Often times such grandiose claims are just made to intimidate or obfuscate to see if the complaining licensee will just go away. This is a recognized buff group behavior. GMRS was never intended to duplicate the Amateur Radio Service. The ARS has as one of its mandates that it be available to communities in time of need. The GMRS rules do not have that proviso. The GMRS Rules only say that individual licensees may assist with communications in times of need. There is no requirement that they do so, and certainly no justification for any group or jurisdiction to commandeer a frequency for a particular department, city, or county only to reserve it indefinitely for their private communications while waiting for the big emergency that may never come. The best approach is to encourage families to use GMRS systems and then facilitate their desire to assist, if any, by encouraging their cooperation within a local, regional, or state disaster plan. There are many GMRS groups that have members that work in the public safety occupations around the United States doing it the right way. They use GMRS for family communications and volunteer their systems and their free time to assist jurisdictions in times of communication emergency just like the Amateur Radio Operators do. The difference is they encourage public membership in their organizations and work together with other licensees toward the betterment of the radio service. It is possible for like-minded persons of any group to operate a GMRS repeater group within the scope of the FCC Rules. When groups behave in ways that conflict with the intent of the regulations or operate in ways that openly discourage or intimidate others they can attract enforcement attention. A group that finds itself incompatible with the GMRS might want license in a different radio service where channel assignments are coordinated. My department does not welcome this aggravation and harassment. We want to comply with the rules and want your watchdog group to go away. The Personal Radio Association and its members do not specialize in the delivery of aggravation or harassment. Your irritation and frustration is self inflicted discomfort. Had your department paid closer attention to following the FCC Rules you would have NEVER attracted the concern and attention of other licensees and then of the FCC Enforcement Bureau. A responsible public safety jurisdiction has an obligation to the community to obey the laws the rest of us must obey. Do not blame others for the consequences of your own failure to follow or willfully ignore the FCC rules. My agency gets better coverage on the GMRS repeater for Office of Emergency Management operations. That's why we use it. That's really irrelevant isn't it? Perhaps it is time to coordinate a new public safety frequency that has the coverage you need to serve your community adequately rather than seize a frequency not allocated for that purpose? The other option you have is getting every OEM employee to license in the GMRS and requiring them to cooperate with the thousands of other GMRS licensees sharing the same frequencies. What types of operations might be incompatible in the GMRS? The GMRS is defined as a radio service for personal licensees. It is not defined as a service where large scale business or public safety operations are conducted. Grandfathered licensees have had since 1987, eighteen years, to move to more compatible frequencies. A more compatible frequency is one that is selected by a frequency coordinator for the radio service in which the the business or agency is eligible to license. As an example, what sense does it make for a fire agency to use a GMRS repeater allocation all day for fire response training? These kinds of operations should be carried out on Public Safety frequencies coordinated by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officers - APCO. There are benefits! The allocation is coordinated so you suffer less interference. The kid down the street is not likely to pop up on your repeater output and interfere with your activities. The station ID requirement in the Public Safety radio service is once every 30 minutes and one CW ID identifies EVERYONE. In GMRS all individuals must license and use their call signs. Your watchdog group posted my name on the Internet like I was some kind of criminal. A Google search of my call sign reveals my FCC warning letter. The FCC sends letters to persons where there is a strong presumption, based on the facts submitted, that an FCC Rules violation(s) has occurred. Actions of the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau are a matter of public record. How can you possibly blame the person that reported your transgressions to the FCC for the publication of a public record detailing the actions of the Enforcement Bureau? The PRA website is not the only website where such letters are seen. The American Radio Relay League also publishes copies of GMRS letters when the subject of the complaint is also an Amateur Radio licensee. The best way to avoid seeing your name in these Enforcement Bureau public records is to obey the FCC Rules. To put it more simply, you will not get a speeding ticket if you do not speed! We are going to sue you for slander, threats, and false accusations! Slander is spoken. Libel is printed. Libel also requires proof that the intent was malicious! The Personal Radio Association and its members are not in the business of character defamation! In the normal course of human communication in the PRA web-based forums at PopularWireless.com some things may be said that offend another's sensibilities. Intentional postings harming another are not tolerated. Disagreement and free-speech is tolerated. We expect that most mature rational grown-ups will have a sticks-and-stones will-break-my-bones but words-will-never-hurt-me philosophy when they decide to participate in open web-based public forums! All of the forums at this website have moderators that do their best to watch for inappropriate behavior. Every user of the forums is WARNED as they sign up to participate that they are singularly responsible for the content of their own messages AND that if ANYONE takes offense at the comments of another, those that take offense have an OBLIGATION to inform the owner of PopularWireless.com. During all of 2005 not ONE reader of the PRA forums contacted the PRA or the magazine to complain about the writings of a forum participant. The PRA website, as well as the pages of PopularWireless Magazine, are available to anyone or to any organization that want to respond politely to the expressed opinion of another if they feel they have been harmed in some way. When a user of the bulletin board makes a statement you find inappropriate you should send a communication to the editor at editor@popularwireless.com. The editor and you can decide together the best way to respond. That can include an editorial opinion written by you, a response to the person in an open forum etc. Threats to sue are the thundering bluster of an irrational angry mind and not the least bit constructive. Before you bluster, muster the courage to speak man-to-man to resolve your complaint. What? Help someone who innocently doesn't know they require a license? It's just too easy for someone to fill out a PRA form and email it. That's it. Case over. Then let the "feds" attack and watch the fur fly. You are correct - it is totally immature and also immature for the PRA to suggest this route to go. Your 'I'm gonna sic the feds on 'em!' attitude is immature and unprofessional. Here's a chance to be a hero - and you're wasting a valuable opportunity. This was borrowed from an exchange on the GMRS Yahoo list. Two authors are responsible for these opinions that are misleading, incorrect, and uninformed. At issue is wether or not a GMRS licensee should ALWAYS attempt to contact a commercial GMRS pirate or if the licensee should report that pirate using the program initiated with the FCC Enforcement Bureau by the PRA using the PRA reporting form. The writers apparently believe that in every case a pirate or the pirate's radio company should be contacted first! In the suggestion they imply the Personal Radio Association is immature and unprofessional. The claim is that we are simply wanting to be the sick-the-feds-on-them hero while wasting a valuable opportunity. The Board of Directors and members of the PRA behind the enforcement program are not immature nor do they have a hero complex. On the contrary, the Board of Directors, PRA members, and many GMRS licensees are fed up with commercial intruders in the GMRS. GMRS licensees have shown time and time again, after attempting contact with pirates, that the radio shops that put intruders on GMRS channels do so knowing that they are violating FCC Rules. Licensees know that in virtually ALL cases where attempts at contact precede a report to the FCC those contacts produce no results. The piracy continues unabated. We are not exactly sure why these people believe as they do but it runs contrary to the experience of reasonable licensees. We can ALSO tell you that FCC has asked us to report the transgressors instead of contacting them on our own. There may be situations where first contact is a good idea. There may be situations where it is not. Every PRA complaint is vetted by at least two Board members before it is submitted to the Commission. We might suggest first contact in some situations but we do most frequently recommend against it. Contrary to what these writers believe, once we make a complaint we have a reasonable belief that reporting the issue to the FCC is the right thing to do. It has nothing to do with feeling like a hero. Believe us! The PRA would rather NOT have an enforcement program! The FCC Rules are very clear. Some people decide not to follow the rules, read owner's manuals, and just do as they please. Those that do not follow the rules make life miserable for those that do. We can assure you that:
|
||||
| |