On December 21, CQ Communications, publisher of CQ Magazine, filed a petition to amend the FCC’s prohibition against business communication over Amateur Radio. This proposal was written not just to cover emergency communications (as was the N5GAR/WB6NOA/N5FDL petition filed Oct. 15) but to include certain other groups as well, such as astronauts and CQ’s own employees.
(Download a copy of the petition here. .DOC format).
These groups, and a few others, could run afoul of the “pecuniary interest” prohibition while doing things like operating from the International Space Station, writing a product review, or participating in a contest.
Here is CQ’s proposed wording:
Proposed Rule Changes
18. Therefore, for the reasons cited above, petitioner proposes the following changes to §97.113 (Proposed additions in italics; proposed deletions are shown with a strikethrough):
1. Amend subsection (a), paragraph (3), as follows:
§97.113 Prohibited transmissions.
(a) No amateur station shall transmit:
(3) Communications in which the station licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest, including communications on behalf of an employer, except as otherwise provided in these rules. Amateur operators may, however, notify other amateur operators of the availability for sale or trade of apparatus normally used in an amateur station, provided that such activity is not conducted on a regular basis;
2. Add a new subsection(e), as follows:
(e) Communications on behalf of an employer may be transmitted on an occasional basis, provided that:
(1) Such communications are incidental to the employee’s normal job responsibilities and are conducted voluntarily;
(2) Such communications are conducted during an employee’s personal time, including but not limited to lunch hours, days off and other non-compensated time periods, and
(3) The primary beneficiaries of such communications are other amateurs and/or members of the general public, and not the employer.
(4) Nothing in these rules shall be construed to limit the recreational use of an amateur station on an employer’s premises by a duly licensed employee, as authorized by the station licensee.
3. Redesignate existing subsection (e) as (f) make the following changes:
(f) No station shall retransmit programs or signals emanating from any type of radio station other than an amateur station, except propagation and weather forecast information intended for use by the general public and originated from United States Government stations and communications, including incidental music, originating on United States Government frequencies between a manned space vehicle shuttle and its associated Earth stations. Prior approval for manned space vehicle shuttle retransmissions must be obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Such retransmissions must be for the exclusive use of amateur operators. Propagation, weather forecasts, and manned space vehicle shuttle retransmissions may not be conducted on a regular basis, but only occasionally, as an incident of normal amateur radio communications.
4. Redesignate existing subsection (f) as (g).
In a more-reasoned era, this wording was not necessary and good sense prevailed. With the FCC on the warpath, this petition now seems necessary.
I am supportive of this petition, but don’t like one paragraph, specifically the one that requires employees to communicate “on their own time.”
I don’t see how to make this work in the real world, especially with public safety employees. Are workers really expected to submit special time sheets to make sure they are not paid while on-the-air? And what about people who multitask, are they supposed to add up their total airtime and have it deducted from their wages?
I understand what CQ hoped to accomplish with the paragraph. We considered and quickly rejected similiar wording for our petition, based on the reasoning I’ve outlined.
When the FCC finally assigns a Rule Making number and comment periods on this issue, I will comment in favor of the CQ proposal.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 10:18AM 
