I have to say a few things on this matter of stepping up enforcement. I have seen too many of these laws made to step enforcement of one thing or another and thats right where it ends. The law is made and nothing is done. I USED to be a ham radio operator. I wrote the FCC and asked them to cancel my license. The last straw was due to a ham radio operator who had a grudge against myself and another ham and decided to act in a childish way and cross band a ham radio repeater with a police department that he thought was local to where I was and then called the police department to inform them that my buddy and I were the ones interfering with them. He told them how it was done and all. Problem was that we were located in a place, at the time where we could not have connected either repeater together even if we wanted to. We couldn't even hear either repeater from where we were. In addition to that we didn't have equipment available to us to do so. This same ham went on to interfere with many other places including one instance where he called over Walmarts security radios that there was a guy running around their parking lot with a loaded shot gun threatening people, which sparked a large police response. He eventually got arrested for that because someone turned him. When I wrote the FCC, I gave this as a reason for wanting nothing to do with ham radio. I gave specific information, what frequencies this guy operated on and with what equipment and all the entities he was interfering with. The response from the FCC? An envelope with the application to cancel my ham license. The guy in question? He's still full bore in the ham radio and friends with many of the hams. NOTHING was ever done about it. The FCC doesn't care. No law will ever make them care. However, Ham radio operators are not helping at all.
Since the early 2000's hams have been upgrading in droves and running off to the HF bands. These same hams will rarely ever touch anything above 30 MHz. These same hams, when presented with a news article about the threat of their precious 2m and 440 bands being auctioned or taken away or whatever gets said, will jump up and start posting all over these message boards and crying not to take their bands away and how they are professional emergency operators. The FCC isn't dumb. I sit here still listening to the 2m and 440 bands where I live and I hear absolutely nothing unless a traffic net is scheduled. Even when I went back to my home state for a visit, I listened. DEAD!!! Times when I remember the radio to be hopping with traffic........it was DEAD!!! The FCC knows hams dont use 30 MHz and higher the way they do with the HF bands. With all the over crowding of everyone in the 30 mhz+ range who actually USE their frequencies for necessary business, the FCC is going to have no problem dissolving ham radio operation above 30 mhz. I have always loved 30 mhz + frequencies and the technology that went with it. I have never liked the HF bands. Sadly I never really met any hams in any area that I lived that were into 30 mhz +. They all tried and tried to get me to advance my license to join them on HF. Thats why, in the 13 years I held a ham license, I actually was only active, collectively, probably 2 years, 3 years tops.
If Hams want their bands to be clean, free from people interfering, They need to START USING THEIR BANDS!!! Dont sit here and abandon 30 mhz + and then get in an uproar when you got the bands running rampant with morons abusing it. I remember when problems were taken care of when it came to people interfering on 2m. Since that time, most hams have abandoned 2m and some actually refer to it as the CB radio. Well if you are going to have that sort of attitude..... no wonder nothing gets done and no wonder why its been taken over by people causing issues. The FCC sees this. It would not surprise me, if, in the next 20 years, the FCC makes 2m the new CB band. Think about it. No static. Clear communications. Just had to rant because I am sick of seeing this over and over again. There is a reason why I left ham radio. This was one of the reasons. Ive thought about taking my test and getting back into it but, between there being no one on ham radio anymore, stuff like this, and the fact that I dont have the type of income to "chase the digital carrot", Im not going to bother. Sad thing is, I took a practice test the other day and I scored a 91%. Have fun with the ham bands. The FCC is watching, but not for people interfering.
