In My View

Editorial Opinion
by Doug Smith
KAF9830
WA6GON

The bubble pack manufacturers and marketing companies are winning. The inexpensive GMRS bubble pack radios have been flying off the walls at retailers for well over two years. Most of these radios are probably being operated without a license. I have heard quite a few right here in Southern, MD. Reports we have received about other parts of the country make the unlicensed abuse of commercial channels look minuscule in comparison to the abuse GMRS is now experiencing. This is what the industry wanted and I believe person(s) within the FCC helped them achieve this objective. I think the FCC has known all along we would not approve or support the move but they have stubbornly proceeded on a course of action that would change GMRS forever regardless of the investment existing licensees have in the service.

I renewed my GMRS License in 2002. Will it still be valid in five more? Does the FCC have a plan to end GMRS licensing and create another radio service ruled by anarchy, singing children, and massive interference levels from call tones and Rhinos? One could only assume that is the case given the events of 2001-2002. Does the FCC represent the interests of licensees or the interests of manufacturers and retailers?

It is an under statement to say that I am personally very disappointed in the Commission. I have come to expect brazen behavior directed at GMRS from certain elements within the two-way radio industry but I never expected to be sold out by the FCC. I can only assume that manufacturers are apparently involved in exparte conversations with their friends at the FCC making deals behind the scenes that meet corporate financial needs and not the needs of GMRS licensees. The FCC is moving the industry's interests right along while completely ignoring ours.

I suspect it goes along with the Commission's stated desire to open up shared spectrum for low power purposes to new wireless technologies that benefit the economy. The FCC is now active in the politics of spectrum change and social reconstruction at the same time they are trying to enforce existing communication law. When enforcement issues conflict with their new industry building objectives the FCC simply ignores the their own statutory mandates. They back down on enforcement. I was told as much by a prominent FCC official. GMRS enforcement is a very low priority for two reasons. The first is 9/11. The FCC Field Offices are involved very heavily in homeland security issues. The second is that the WTB has been considering delicensing GMRS by rule.

I was told that GMRS had no organized mouth piece. We have no lobbying organization in Washington to protect our interests. Amateur Radio has the ARRL, law enforcement has APCO, and other representative organizations protect the spectrum interests of other users. My contacts at the Commission suggest very strongly that if GMRS is going to survive licensees are going to have to organize and write their representatives in Washington and demand that the FCC:

1. enforce GMRS rules and regulations
2. continue licensing new families and continue to support licensing
3. lower the license fee

The FCC has indeed been heading towards delicensing GMRS by rule. All indications are that their actions are supported by manufacturers and the FCC has neglected to involve the thousands of existing licensees. Why? Economic interests that's why. And my FCC contact is right. We have no lobbying force in Washington to look after our interests. We must organize and we must start speaking out.

There are two schools of thought within our own disorganized ranks regarding letters to Congress. The first is that Congress may be able to help nudge the FCC toward discussions with existing licensees. The second is that such notions that Congress can help are naive. The folks holding the latter position believe that licensees should embrace de-licensing by rule and attempt negotiations with the FCC to minimize the damage and to help the FCC achieve their re-engineering objectives.

I am inclined to do both. The primary reason is because an FCC insider suggested it and that person knows the politics of change. The second reason is that the FCC should have a role in the future of radio communication but not at the expense of existing licensees. Their actions over the years since the creation of the Family Radio Service have been to mold the service into something the bubble pack radio industry wanted with complete disregard for current licensees. Arrogant behavior deserves a review by the Congress. The FCC answers to Congress. Congress is in the FCC's chain of command. On the other hand, some folks believe we will continue to anger the managers at WTB and we can only hurt our case if we go over their heads. Apparently the FCC already has had experiences with some of us that they would just as soon not repeat. Folks have also suggested that in current times it would be extremely difficult to even interest a Senator or Representative in this issue. The danger of doing nothing is that we lose the thousands of dollars we have invested in our family radio systems on the whim of a bureaucrat.

No, we do not want to deal with a vindictive Commission as we try to protect our interests in GMRS, but at the same time the unfairness of the current situation must be made clear to the FCC and to Congress so we can move on and discuss positive technical changes. Licensees would like to see technical changes to GMRS and FRS that would benefit our service while protecting what we have already achieved. The changes the FCC has already made in the name of technical progress have severely harmed, and continue to harm GMRS with no apparent solutions in sight.

GMRS licensees are now in the difficult position of being a large group of angry, betrayed, and unrepresented licensees that must now kneel before the Commission to discuss the future of our service in the FCC's terms. There really is no choice. The FCC embarked upon spectrum wide changes and a mission dedicated to economic development of new consumer technologies. We are part of that plan. We can either go along or we can be dragged into the future kicking and screaming. We have a RIGHT as licensees to participate fully in any planned changes and to EXPRESS our opinion AND to have the FCC act responsibly based on our input. The FCC never has had the right to pull the rug out from underneath us but they have done just that. We need to make it clear to the FCC that their actions to date have not been in our interests or in the interests of the general public who they portend to also represent. In many regards their actions do not even support the new technologies they want to see implemented. They have acted with arrogance and insensitivity at the behest of manufacturers that have flooded the market with garbage.

• The FRS was created. Seven FRS channels were placed between repeater inputs to the objection of GMRS licensees. The FCC said there would be no interference to existing repeater systems and in one instance said there were few if any reports. The interference to GMRS repeaters by FRS radios is acute and has worsened as the FRS became more popular. The EB has the reports and licensees have the personal experience. The magazine has documented the interference for years. The FCC was wrong.
• Inexpensive FRS and GMRS radios were manufactured that did not meet technical specifications. We first saw manufacturers slipping in FRS radios with removable antennas, then we saw radios with frequency tolerances exceeding permissible levels, then came GMRS radios that claimed specific power levels that were not technically possible. Grandiose mileage claims are the most popular marketing hype.
• The FCC approved inexpensive GMRS bubble-pack radios and manufacturers and retailers ignored licensing requirements either overtly or by clever marketing language. This became an advertising problem for the FTC supposedly outside the scope of the FCC's mandates despite the fact that new unlicensed bubble-pack pirates were wreaking havoc in many areas of the United States.
• The FCC approved 22-channel GMRS/FRS hybrid radios without so much as blinking. They never looked our direction. GMRS licensees were shocked. Now consumers are REALLY confused. Licensing?
• The FCC granted a waiver to Garmin to develop a new FRS/GPS FRS hand-held radio. This magazine and NorCal filed fair and well thought out comments about using the devices on GMRS channels and repeater inputs. We ASSUMED the end product would be an FRS radio with GPS enabled. What we got was a GMRS radio with GPS on the FRS channels and to my recollection our comments were ignored by the bureaucrats.
• The magazine has recent information (March 2003) that the FCC has written a RadioShack retail store in the U.S. advising them to cease selling two-meter Amateur Radios to persons intending to use the radios without a license. There is no such FCC direction even anticipated for GMRS. The bubble-pack piracy debacle demonstrates to many of us that the FCC is deliberately doing in one radio service what it prohibits in another when EACH service deserves the SAME protection. Why?

Predictions Came True

What frustrates and angers me about this situation is that we have NOT been totally silent. We have been dealing with the Commission all along on the issue of GMRS piracy. This magazine and NorCal Licensees have led the charge and a significant number of groups across the country have followed suit. As an example, Northern California GMRS licensees, and this magazine, have for four years reported unlicensed GMRS stations to the FCC Enforcement Bureau. We have worked closely with them to identify abuses of the services that were in violation of existing FCC Rules and Regulations. These pirates and their incompatible uses threatened our continued enjoyment of our family radio systems so we went to the FCC for help.

The Enforcement Bureau has known all along that we are concerned about the growing number of bubble-pack pirates as well as commercial pirates. We have expressed our concern to the Enforcement Bureau about the cheap radio toys marketed as five-mile GMRS radios that have vague and misleading licensing information on the packages and in at least one case (perhaps many more) not even capable of meeting advertised output power specifications.

The FCC has given away GMRS to the marketing interests and has stopped caring about the service as we know it. GMRS is headed for anarchy just like the Citizens Band, but in this case the FCC is responsible and not the GMRS licensees. CB was destroyed by the hobby interests that flooded this shortwave band segment to take advantage of long distance communication. Those who wanted to avoid achieving an Amateur Radio license flocked to CB because the frequencies were subject to long distance ionospheric propagation. The temptation to break the long distance rule was too great. CB is now a useless wasteland and thanks to the FCC WTB GMRS is not far behind.

Our predictions of the past have come true but the primary contributing factor to the demise of the service was not the commercial pirates as we originally thought it might be. No, the primary reason the service is now in trouble is because the organization mandated by Congress to enforce the rules of our service is now more dedicated to building future technologies with no apparent consideration for the operations of existing licensees.

The WTB is Avoiding Us

The FCC WTB is avoiding us. Northern California GMRS licensees and this magazine filed comments with the Commission regarding Garmin's proposal to include GPS data in FRS radios. We wanted the Commission to take a hard look at the idea BEFORE these radios were sold to the general public. We supported the technology but we had serious compatibility concerns. As far as I can tell we were completely and totally ignored. Garmin is now selling their Rhino GPS radio. It is one of the silly so-called GMRS/FRS hybrid bubble-pack radios. The GPS function is limited to FRS channels as specified their original FCC waiver but they nevertheless put the functionality in a radio capable of transmitting on GMRS channels! Why? Every licensee thought, every licensee assumed, that Garmin was going to sell this functionality in an FRS radio. We never believed the FCC would allow the functionality in a GMRS radio. The ONLY reason to do so was to create yet another mass market product that would put millions of unlicensed persons on the eight GMRS frequencies so that delicensing could be accomplished with little effort. This isn't conspiracy theory. In my opinion it is quite obvious something has been very wrong for a long time at the WTB.

Thanks to manufacturers we now have gazillions of bubble-pack GMRS radios that consumers believe they do not need a license to operate. They assume this because the GMRS radios also have all fourteen FRS channels in them. (We licensees had NO visibility into the FCC's decision to allow hybrid radios.) When the twenty-two channel GMRS radios first began to appear some GMRS licensees told the Commission they had created a monster. We couldn't believe the FCC would be so careless. It is immediately obvious that in so doing the FCC created a horribly confusing situation for consumers and levels of interference that we could scarcely imagine.

It is this magazine's opinion that a twenty-two channel radio is a GMRS radio. Possession of one of these radios demonstrates INTENT to operate on all channels and therefore requires the user to have a GMRS license. I know, and all licensees know, that these radios are being sold at retail as no-license-required on the FRS channels. The FCC allowed manufacturers to create a GMRS radio that confused consumers and retailers to this degree. They did so because it would help their future delicensing agenda.

The FCC Does not Represent Us

Remember that this is an editorial. It is my personal opinion. My opinion is based on some colloquial knowledge of our service. I am not anti-FCC I am suspect of certain people or agendas of the FCC. As a matter of fact I think that several of us here at the magazine have established with the FCC Enforcement Bureau that we respect, admire, and cooperate wherever we can. I think it is important for us though, as licensees, to understand that the FCC does not represent us. We can have all the warm and fuzzy cooperation with the EB that we need but we must represent our interests. We must do this. We should continue to have considerable respect for the folks at the FCC Enforcement Bureau who do work on our behalf. Every contact I have ever had with the Enforcement Bureau has been a positive one and I would like to keep it that way.

In my opinion, the two branches of the FCC, EB and WTB do not communicate well with each other. In a perfect world the activities of the Enforcement Bureau should have some influence on the activities of the WTB and vice versa. The WTB apparently has more of a political and economic function and does not fully understand the implications of their decisions. Perhaps they do understand. They are just on a different mission. If WTB communicated with the Enforcement Bureau perhaps WTB might not have been so careless. If they have communicated then this is not carelessness at all but a for-real WTB agenda item - delicensing by rule.

While the Enforcement Bureau has indeed helped GMRS the WTB has made decisions that fly in the face of common sense and have the potential for making enforcement completely impossible. The Enforcement Bureau is in-between a rock and a hard place now. Soon it will be virtually impossible for them to enforce the GMRS rules because too many millions of people will be violating them thanks to the WTB. We have already seen a dramatic decline in GMRS piracy enforcement. After I left the State of California in 2001 no new cases, that NorCal knew of were worked by the San Francisco Region FCC office. EB enforcement has been spotty at best.

What do we want now?

We may be stuck with delicensing by rule. The current mind set at the FCC will wince at suggestions that licensing be used to deny access to GMRS by the general public. Even though access is not currently denied the spin is that licensing does deny access to those who would rather not apply but want access to the eight additional channels for family communication and the increased range higher power allows.

What we are faced with now is deciding what elements of our existing service we want to protect if delicensing occurs. Here are a few thoughts. These are only thoughts.

1. Require GMRS licensing for persons using transceivers over two watts and all transceivers that can access repeaters.
2. Require that all bubble-pack radios ship with warnings that communication on the devices are NOT protected from interference by licensees using repeater stations, base stations on external antennas and mobile units over two-watts.
3. Require that all new GMRS capable radios two watts and lower have non-removable antennas and operate with FRS narrow band specs.
4. Require the FCC to monitor the truth and accuracy of bubble-pack GMRS channel capable radios two-watts and lower in power.
5. Require that the FCC and FTC work together to monitor advertising of GMRS capable bubble-pack radios.
6. Set a date by which time the GMRS can move to NBFM 12.5 Khz operation. Let's do in GMRS what is already being done in the commercial and public safety spectrum.
7. Establish a liaison at the FCC between GMRS interests and the FCC. I suggest Riley Hollingsworth. He is an honorable man with a positive attitude toward the personal radio services and his common sense approach to problem solving is beyond reproach.
8. The FCC should continue enforcement against unlicensed commercial pirates.
9. The FCC should eliminate all grandfathered commercial licensees on GMRS by a specific date, to be determined.
10. The FCC should require that owner's manuals in FRS and GMRS radios include information about sharing the radio spectrum with other users. Specific behaviors that prevent shared use of a limited resource like singing, unrestricted use of call tones to annoy others, etc. should be covered.
11. Analog call tones should be ended and new calling and alerting technology developed. Analog call tones are used to annoy and are largely ineffective.

Write Your Representative

It is time for us to start writing our representatives in the House and Senate. Someone needs to look down at the WTB through the sitting Commissioners. Accountability and fairness must be restored at the Commission so licensees have a voice. We have been pushed aside since the creation of FRS by the government agency that should be looking at our interests as well as the interests of technological change.

In the next few months the magazine may also begin to explore creating a full-fledged lobbying organization for GMRS. Since I am now located just forty-five miles South of D.C. it may be time for me to start asking for appointments at WTB so that our concerns are heard.

I would prefer that every licensee write their own letter to their representative. Put the facts in your own words. Send a copy of your letter to the Commissioners. Link to this editorial. Post your letter in the Intruder forum so we can all read it and let us know what kind of response you receive.