CQ Magazine's 97.113 Petition

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.

Comments

[David Gillespie]

I have read this, along with yours and other proposals to amend FCC 97.113 allowing amateurs who are employees of organizations where amateur equipment may be used during an emergency. As a member of ARRL I am not impressed with the wording and construction of their proposed amendments. I do support any change that will allow employed, or "embedded" hams to both train and operate during emergencies, declared or perceived.

One issue we are struggling with is an amateur monitoring the local station, during work hours, hears a distant station (more than 100 miles away) request assistance due to some natural or man-made disaster. Clearly its an emergency for the station calling, not so much the local station, but the FCC has not issued an opinion, they hardly ever issues opinions, regarding this. Hopefully any proposed amendment language would address this and other challenges to employee hams operating while on the clock, or not.

I typically agree that less is more in most things, but are we are patching the patch? Perhaps a revisit to the fundamental concept is in order. I did find it interesting that operating a new piece of equipment for the purpose of writing a review for the magazine that employs a person can be read as a violation. I guess so.