From: Alun L. Palmer on Aug 31, 3:37 am

" wrote in
oups.com:

NPRM 05-143, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would eliminate
morse code test element 1 from all amateur radio license
examinations was supposedly released on 15 July 2005. It is
marked "approved" as of 19 July 2005. A scanned copy of that
NPRM was marked "received" by date stamp as 20 July 2005 and
introduced to WT Docket 05-235 supposedly on 15 July 2005...but
did not appear to anyone accessing the ECFS until 21 July 2005.

NPRM 05-143 is clearly marked as to the Comment Perior being "60
Days after published in the Federal Register." That's on the first
page and page 25 of that 30-page NPRM document.

One problem: NPRM 05-143 HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL
REGISTER AS OF THE MORNING OF 30 AUGUST 2005! A month and a half
has elapsed since the middle of July, 1962 Comments have been filed
on WT Docket 05-235 as of 29 August 2005.

snip

I doubt if the League have that much pull, although they probably would if
they could. Someone certainly got s25 kept off the ITU docket for years,
otherwise the international code test requirement would have gone in 1993
or thereabouts, so sandbagging has certainly been a part of this.

Hello Alun, did I call it or what? smirk :-

The day after I posted that, Cross and company got the Federal
Register NOTICE in...six weeks after the NPRM was released. Six
weeks and 1968 filed Comments later...

I don't believe in coincidences that "justify" some rather obvious
hanky-panky going on behind the scenes that us ordinary folks can't
see. Us ordinary folk don't have communications-law firms on
retainer nor can we generally afford Lobbyist firms to "represent"
us in DC.

One thing important in the Federal Register notice that is NOT in
the body of text of NPRM 05-143: SPECIFIC DATES for the end of
the Comment period and for the end of Reply to Comments period.
31 October 2005 for end of Comments, 14 November 2005 for end of
Reply to Comments.

Had the FR notice been timely, the end of Comments would have been
15th or 16th September 2005, end of Reply to Comments about 30
September for the "60/75 day" normal sequencing. It was SIX WEEKS
LATE. "Human error?" Highly unlikely. Specific scheduling, quite
likely. A rather small group of staff is going to be stuck with
sorting through the "old" Comments (over 1800 unambiguous ones)
and whatever comes in from 31 August 2005 until the end of October.
The poor schlumphs who have to wade through all the documents will
have at least until year-end Holidays to complete their task.

Will we get a "reading" on what the FCC is going to do with those
1800+ unambiguous filings that came in prior to 31 August? We
don't know yet. The Supreme Amateur Court of Newington hasn't
issued a Ruling as of this morning of the 31st of August. We
must await their Final Disposition or whatever. ["oyez, oyez"]

---

As to what went on in DC and with the IARU and WARCs/WRCs prior
to WRC-03 and revision of S25, all we have is PARTIAL INFORMATION.
The U.S. government wasn't fully on-line with archives in 1993
(Internet went public in 1991). It's difficult for us in farther
states to get to the big Reading Room at 445 12th St., SW, and
see all the various correspondence that went on in regards to
U.S. amateur radio regulations from two decades ago. We get
second-hand "information" from "insiders" (such as Miccolis,
and now Stevenson) who "know" what went on. The only REAL
insider is Phil Kane who actually worked IN the FCC...but he
hasn't been talking much lately. Kane left the FCC some time
ago. Our easiest-to-get sources of old information are the
periodicals of the 1980s (ink on real paper isn't ephemeral,
is hard to change all after the many press runs of 50 thousand+
copies each done years ago).

The "movement" to end code testing began to be more earnest
about the mid-1980s, just barely moving then...but enough to
come to the attention of the FCC. Witness the wordings in the
NPRM and final R&O of 1990 that created the no-code Technician
class license in 1991. In 1990 the FCC stated publicly that it
did not consider the morse code test as an indicator of the
qualifications of any amateur to be granted a license. The
FCC did not make a sudden decision on that; it already had some
documentation on hand from citizens by then (that is in their
Reading Room archives).

Gleanings from paper periodicals internationally show to me
that the IARU was split several ways on code testing until
about 2000. [others' take on that will vary no doubt] From
about then the no-code-test movement gathered speed, pushed
first by New Zealanders and then spreading with the speed and
efficiency of the Internet. By 2001 it was unmistably for
changing and revising S25 of the international regulations,
not just for code testing but to modernize them entire. That
was done in 2003. Since then up to 23 administrations have
either eliminated the code test or made the code test an
alternate qualifier (not an absolute) for below-30-MHz
privileges. Up to June 2003 the ARRL had NOT budged on its
adamant stand in favor of code testing.

Since the FCC denied the ARRL's Petition (RM-10867 of 18 Mar 04)
the League hasn't said much. Their in-house seer and
editorializer, executive president Dave Sumner, seems to have
lost his pen somewhere on that. They seem to be building a
case of invading something to find those WMDs though (Weapons
of Morse Destruction), perhaps laying in body bags and such?
This is building to be a Fight To The Death over Ham Radio As
The League Knows It. A Jihad in the making... :-)