Chip -

I respectfully suggest you think again about emergency comm's...
this time slightly outside the most literal "box."

Amateur radio already suffers from an aging base of licensees, and
recruiting new ones is difficult. A very high percentage of the "fun"
involved in amateur radio is HF operation. Providing VHF/UHF
emergency comm's is more like work... our payback for spectrum use.

If the Government says "To Hell with amateur radio--use their HF
spectrum for flaky and redundant ISP service," then many amateurs
will quit--AND leave their VHF/UHF emergency service as well.
I'm likely to be one of them.

And what would the recruiting line be then? "Become an Amateur
Radio operator, and you can spend your time working bicycle
races, and hope to get a cross-town emergency gig some day?"
Whoop-de-do, what fun!

I doubt the FCC will have to hire more staff to process Amateur
applications, with exciting prospects like that driving what's left
of the hobby.

73,

Ed, W6LOL

"Fractenna" wrote in message
...
snip
To wit: consider HF mobile. Why should anyone care if a roving 'ham' gets
blasted by QRM when driving underneath a power line? The emergency comm
argument has limited viability: most emergency comm happens at VHF or UHF
these days, especially mobile.

Provide a compelling answer and you've certainly made it difficult to
justify BPL. Don't make a case and you've thrown the focus on the
necessity
of certain HF 'ham' activities in a broader context.

Hope this helps.

73,
Chip N1IR