FCC Enforcement Bureau Warns Two Hams for Failure to Identify Properly

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has released Warning Notice letters it sent in July to two radio amateurs, advising them that it had monitored transmissions during which the licensees had failed to identify properly. The Bureau posted the correspondence earlier this month on its Amateur Radio Service Enforcement Actions web page. The two notices from FCC Enforcement Bureau Special Counsel Laura L. Smith, both dated July 21, contain essentially the same wording. In a Warning Notice to Gary E. Davis, W1IT, of Inman, South Carolina, Smith told Davis that he was monitored on July 15 and 16 at the FCC's High Frequency Direction Finding Center (HFDFC) in Maryland, failing to properly identify while operating on 7.185 MHz. "[Y]ou were heard by a Commission

employee operating your Amateur Radio station for 20 minutes without identifying in a timely manner," Smith wrote. "The Commission employee used direction-finding equipment and confirmed the transmissions were coming from your location." Smith pointed out that Section 97.119(a) of the Amateur Service Rules requires each amateur station to "transmit its assigned call sign on its transmitting channel at the end of each communication, and at least every 10 minutes during a communication." In a nearly identically worded Warning Notice to John J. Krajewski, KB3MZQ, of Newark, Delaware, Smith said the HFDFC also had monitored transmissions by him on July 15 and 16, also on 7.185 MHz, during which he failed to identify properly. Smith said the FCC had "recorded the offending transmissions" in both instances and offered to make copies available to Davis and Krajewski. She further advised Davis and Krajewski that recurring "operation of this type" after receipt of the warning letters, could subject them to "severe penalties, including license revocation, monetary forfeiture (fines), or a modification proceeding to restrict the frequencies upon which you may operate." In 2006, in response to a Petition for Rule Making, the FCC declined to modify its Amateur Service station identification rules. The petition received some 100 comments. In dismissing the petition the following year, the FCC concluded that the changes requested were "neither necessary nor supported by the Amateur Radio community," and that the failure-to-identify problem "would be better addressed by enforcement of the present rule, rather than a rule change."

The ARRL Letter for September 11, 2014