RDWeaver wrote:

What ever happened to the old FCC Official Observer program? These
were licensed volunteers (hams just like you and me) who passed some
screening exam, and then cruised the bands looking for problems. As I
recall they had no 'police' power but could issue you a 'friendly
reminder', backed up by "chapter and verse" if you were afoul of the
rules. This reminder didn't go on any record, but was intended to
take a load off the FCC monitoring stations. I suppose that 'frequent
offenders' were referred upstairs, but I never heard of it.

Although it's referred to as the "Amateur Auxillary of the FCC", the OO
program is primarily an ARRL field appointment, and it's still alive and
well. See http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/am_aux.html and
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/oo.html

I received my share of OO citations back in the 60's. They helped me
understand the wonders of harmonics of the 80-meter novice band and how
well they propagated.

I think that the OO contingent has also been used to help document
recent malicious interference situations, but they're hams like you and
me, not FCC employees. An analogy is Skywarn . . . spotters are trained
and treated differently than the general public, but they're not
official NWS employees.