FCC Proposes to Reinstate Amateur Radio Service Fees

[ChrisSmolinski]

Amateur radio licensees would pay a $50 fee for each amateur radio license application if the FCC adopts rules it proposed this week. Included in the FCC’s fee proposal are applications for new licenses, renewal and upgrades to existing licenses, and vanity call sign requests. Excluded are applications for administrative updates, such as changes of address, and annual regulatory fees.

http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-proposes-to-reinstate-amateur-radio-service-fees#:~:text=Amateur%20radio%20licensees%20would%20pay,rules%20it%20proposed%20this%20week.

[ThaDood]

Here's another link about that,    https://swling.com/blog/2020/08/fcc-proposes-50-fee-for-new-ham-radio-licenses-upgrades-and-vanity-applications/

 Well, we have time to give our $0.02 worth about this. But, ya know just what's weird about this? The FCC knocked off -$10.00 from the GMRS license, from $80.00 to now $70.00, and it went from a 5 year license to a 10 year one. I know this from renewing my GMRS license last month.

[N0TLD]

I am not fully educated on all the ramifications of such a thing... but if I thought the money would honestly go toward actual, effective monitoring and FCC enforcement on the bands, I think I should be glad to essentially pay $5 a year for my 10 year license, especially if it would directly help remove the illegal, hateful, garbage-spreading bullies and cowards who have been poisoning certain frequencies for many, many years. I am no goody-goody op, but the FCC has been essentially absent from the bands for far too long -- it seems like by the late '80s or so, the FCC essentially handed over all the actual work of the amateur bands (licensing and regulating and organizing and monitoring) to volunteers and the ARRL and a skeleton crew of actual Fed officials, and have only pursued commercial radio ($$$) interests ever since. I am definitely against adding fees if the FCC is merely going to continue being invisible on non-commercial amateur radio and letting volunteers, EMCOM and the ARRL keep doing all the work. But if the FCC would actually rejoin in the effort and take part in the process with the money they'd be collecting from us, different story. It will be interesting to see what happens.


Mike
N0TLD

[Fansome]

SB QST @ ARL $ARLB021
ARLB021 FCC Application Fee Proposal Proceeding is Open for Comments

ZCZC AG21
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 21  ARLB021
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  September 3, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB021
ARLB021 FCC Application Fee Proposal Proceeding is Open for Comments

Comments are being accepted on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(NPRM) in MD Docket 20-270, which proposes application fees for
radio amateurs. Formal deadlines for comments and reply comments
will be determined once the NPRM appears in the Federal Register.
Comments may be filed now, however, by using the FCC's Electronic
Comment Filing System (ECFS), located at,
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings , and posting to MD Docket No.
20-270. The docket is already open for accepting comments, even
though deadlines have not yet been set.

The NPRM can be found online in PDF format at,
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-116A1.pdf .
NNNN
/EX