On Apr 11, 1:29 pm, (Michael Black) wrote:
"Brian O" ) writes:
Well, what in hell does "wrong" mean to you, if not immoral or
unethical?

Its not unethical or immoral to charge whatever someone wants to charge for
a service. They can charge what they want to. You have the choice to pay
or operate illegally.

Actually, the choice can include "finding alternatives". And that's what
blows his justification up.

He has a ham license, yet that's no good for reasons he's bound to
come up with. He could use FRS walkie talkies, an allocation for people
who need some communication capability but don't want to pay a license
fee, and are willing to share with the masses. He can use CB, that
was intended for this sort of thing, and no longer even has a license.
He can use field telephones, complete with the roll of wire. He
can use semaphore, or blinkers. He can write the message down, and
either pass it on later, or use a messenger to deliver it. Undoubtedly
he has all kinds of reasons why none of them work. The problem is, that
once he starts judging that way, it's easy to say "well somewhere in the
aero band would be perfect, I think I'll use that".

You are right - there are simple straightforward reasons why none of
the alternatives you suggest would work. You are also wrong - I would
never, ever use a service, GMRS included, where the potential for
interference in a potential emergency were more than negligible. In
aero bands, police services or any other essential government radio
service, or the amateur bands, the possibility would *never* occur.
Again, it isn't about what some bureaucrat thinks is right - it is
about what IS right.


And that completely ignores the issue of the ultimate importance
of all this. Obviously if someone is an emergency situation, then
just about anything goes. But, they'd better be careful that they
actually have properly judged the emergency to warrant the use, because
if they think it's okay to use police freqencies to call for someone
to come and repair a flat tire, they'd likely judge wrong. One alone
may not impact on emergency communicaiton, but once everyone starts
doing it, that ruins the frequency.

GMRS has several dozen freqs if you include the subchannels. In
Yellowstone, emergency comms are rarely on anything but official park
radio service equipment, not on GMRS freqs. With the single channel
used by geyser monitors, and the fact that all of the other channels
are wide open and practically unused by anybody in that mountainous
terrain except for occasional kids and parents on an outing (and these
comms are usually goofy if you have a chance to listen), the legal
argument is a very poor match for reality.

In fact, in the geyser basins themselves, it is quite obvious that all
of the unlicensed radio users there would become the de facto
emergency network if a mishap occurred. The NPS would depend on them
to find out where a rescue would need to take place.

Even if there were no alternative communcation methods available,
the justification of breaking the law would depend on how important
this is. "But I want to" isn't justification.

The fact is, I don't want to break the law. I am a far straighter-
shooter than most other people, and I have no arrests for misdemeanors
or felonies anywhere in my 47-yaer-record. A handful of traffic
tickets, mostly mistakes, are my entire retinue. However, I don't
want to be screwed by my government either. This fee is a screwjob.

Don't be fooled by his references to "civil disobedience". Because
that's about changing things, and all he's doing is conveniencing
himself.

Your interpretation from afar. You don't know half the story.

And the joke is, since he claims to have a ham license, is that there
have been cases of people losing their ham licenses because they had
disregard for rules in the other services. THe FCC may decide that
if he shows such bad interpretation of the rules with GMRS, then
he can't be trusted with a ham license.

....and those are the kind of people who will likely use the ham bands
illegally as well.

The joke is, none of what you describe here will ever happen. My
interpretation of the rules is perfect (except for that excessive
fee), and more importantly my *execution* of operations according to
rules is exemplary, as it was on the ham bands and CB when I used
those.

Bruce Jensen