No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal. If the FCC wanted to say sections of an HF band not already available to their ticket, they would’ve said that. Instead they explicitly said “any means of radiocommunication” because that’s what they meant.
Let me help you understand this a different way.
I'm not suggesting ignorance on your part. What I'm seeing is common in the amateur community. It's a form of 'kool-aide' that gets drunk and passed around to other hams. What happens is that a section of a paragraph gets taken out of context, amplified and shared amongst the ham community over and over again. Remember that most hams have never studied FCC rules beyond what is necessary to pass the multiple choice test. There are absolutely some that have taken the time to read (and more importantly
understand) the Part 97 rules. That's good.
What I've found is that for just about all hams, that's where it stops. "I'm a ham, and Part 97 is our rules", end of story.
But that's not the case. The FCC rules are complex and made up of many parts. While Part 97 rules do apply to amateur radio, there are other rule sections that also pertain to amateur and other radio services. It's extremely rare for hams to venture into these rule parts. In fact, I don't think I've ever found a ham that has actually done it.
The part that often gets overlooked is that Part 97 -only- applies to amateur radio operators on amateur radio frequencies. The minute you take your radio outside the frequencies granted to you under 97.301 (and 97.401), you are no longer operating under Part 97. You've left your house at #97 FCC Rd. and went into #90 FCC Rd. Different house, different rules. In your house the rules may be absolutely OK with sparking up a stogie and putting your muddy boots up on the table. The rules in #90 FCC Rd are different. Doesn't matter what the rules are in your house, when you walk in someone else' house, their rules apply.
Hams also fail to read the other FCC rules parts that apply. Part 2 and Part 15.
It's important to understand that Part 2 is called "General Rules", as in they apply to many different radio services. They are sort of an over arching rules section that apply to many different services. Again, it would be really good for amateurs to read this section, but most don't.
One rule in Part 2 that really stands out is 2.405 "Operation in an emergency":
§2.405 Operation during emergency.
The licensee of any station (except amateur, standard broadcast, FM broadcast, noncommercial educational FM broadcast, or television broadcast) may, during a period of emergency in which normal communication facilities are disrupted as a result of hurricane, flood, earthquake, or similar disaster, utilize such station for emergency communication service in communicating in a manner other than that specified in the instrument of authorization: Provided: (and I'll stop my quote there and let you read the rest)
Notice how they've specifically called out the amateur radio service again. This is the rules part that hams think they have in 97.403. Here the FCC has specifically said this does NOT apply to amateur radio (and a few other services).
Look, I get it. Really, I do. Hams want to feel important. That's not a bad thing. But hams need to stop taking one line out of one paragraph out of one rules section and stretching it into something it isn't.
As for this particular case, it shows a number of failures.
1. The agency had an OES engine, that engine would have a state programmed radio in it. That programming load would not only have the NIFOG frequencies in it, it would also have all the CalFire command repeater frequencies loaded into it.
2. The NIFOG frequencies have been around for nearly 20 years now. The feds have been hammering this into the heads of radio guys for nearly 2 decades now: "Program these into your radios for interoperability and for emergencies". It's extremely, highly unlikely that the agency was running radios older than 20 years. If they were, someone would have had to narrow band them back in 2013, and at that point, should have added the NIFOG channels to them. Failure to do so is a gross failure. But when working with volunteer agencies, often the radio "expert" is some guy with a laptop and a Baofeng. That's a whole other level of failure.
3. The specific agency is dispatched by Plumas County SO, and there are multiple repeaters used. It would have been simple for them to contact dispatch and get dispatched on a different frequency. The department would have also had CalFire command frequencies in their radios, and could have used one of those. Many ways to fix this issue.
4. The options noted above should have been known to the Chief. Failure to fully understand the radio system isn't a good thing in that position.
5. As I've said before, the hams did the best they could with what info they had. They did what they thought was right, and did what the Chief probably asked them to do. In reality, hams should know something about the other communications options. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to get information, but if hams want to be valued as an 'emergency resource', then they need to do their homework. Someone should have said, "Hey, why don't you just use VFire22? You have that in all your radios…." But that didn't happen. The hams didn't know of the other options. Ideally hams need to understand more about the communications systems around them so they can handle emergencies.
But, like I've said a few times, they did the best with the knowledge they had. The post incident report should suggest this and come up with a plan for addressing failures in the radio system, and training the staff to use the other resources available to them.
On top of all these issues, it's entirely possible that the amateur radio oriented news report glossed over a lot of the details that didn't provide the story they wanted. For hams, they probably wouldn't consider that, they just focus on the good that was done. That's fine, but for some of us, it raises more questions about training, knowledge and resources.
