Can I Take A Paying
Job As A
PROFESSIONAL Communicator?
Q. Can I take a paying
job as a professional communicator at an amateur station?
A. Perhaps,
at least in places where the FCC regulates our amateur service. Your prospects are limited, but have
been expanded. You have, at present, three possibilities: Firstly, you could accept
compensation for being the control operator of a club station while it is transmitting telegraphy practice or information
bulletins according to specified conditions. Secondly, you could accept compensation as an incident of
a teaching position during periods of time when you are using the amateur station as a part of classroom instruction at an
educational institution. And, finally, you could participate on behalf of an employer in emergency preparedness
or disaster readiness testing or drilling. Read Section 97.113(a)(3)(i).
Q. What is a professional communicator?
A.
In this context, it is someone who accepts compensation for doing that for which an un-paid amateur does; for example:
professional/amateur athletes. Section 97.3(a)(4) defines an amateur as a duly authorized person interested in radio technique
solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest. This definition is also codified in
SEC. 3. [47 USC 153](2) of the Communications Act of 1934 as well as No. 1.56 of the international Radio Regulations (RR) and the United States Code of Federal
Regulations Title 47 Section 2.1(c).
Q. I will be away during an upcoming rare DXpedition. Could I pay a professional
communicator to work the new one for me?
A. While there is no rule that would prohibit you from paying a professional communicator
to work as the control operator of your amateur station, Section 97.113(a)(3) prohibits communications in which the station licensee or control operator has
a pecuniary interest, including communications on behalf of an employer, with certain exceptions codified therein.
The issue, therefore, is whether the person you hire and the work to be done can meet the criteria for one of those
exceptions.
One possibility may lie within the scope of the term operational testing.
That term is used in Section 97.113(c)(3)(i), but otherwise goes undefined in Part 97. It refers, ostensibly, to transmissions made during those periods between
that of actually providing emergency communications and that of participating in emergency preparedness or disaster testing
or drilling.
Conducting two-way communications with distant stations could be one
of the very best ways to test to verify that an amateur station is operational. DXing, therefore, would
seem to qualify as an excellent form of such operational testing. To comply with Section 97.113(c)(3)(i), however, the station must also participate in some emergency preparedness
or disaster readiness testing or drilling immediately following such operational testing.
Any professional communicators that you hire, nevertheless, cannot otherwise be accepting direct or indirect compensation
for being the control operator of a club station for the periods of time when the station is transmitting telegraphy practice
or information bulletins under that exception in Section 97.113(a)(3)(iv). A person engaged in such activity must not accept any direct
or indirect compensation for any other service as a control operator.
Your hired professional communicator,
although holding a FCC-issued amateur operator license or being authorized for alien reciprocal operation by Section 97.107, would no longer qualify as an amateur. There
is a clear-cut intrinsic pecuniary interest when a person causes or allows a station to transmit communications for hire.
That person is a paid professional communicator.
Q. Could he make the DX contact using his station, or would he have to come over to my station and
use its apparatus?
A. Either way can be acceptable. You
could choose to designate him to be the control operator of your station. Read Section 97.103(b). Document the arrangement in your station records just in
case things go sour. The ownership of the transmitting apparatus is irrelevant, just as long as you can
claim legitimately as having physical control of it. Read Section 97.5(a).
Q. What exactly constitutes an amateur station?
A.
Section 97.3(a)(5) says it is a station in an amateur radio service consisting of the apparatus
necessary for carrying on radiocommunications.
Q. Does that include my antenna?
A. Yes.
Section 97.15(b) says that, except as otherwise provided in Part 97, your station antenna structure may be
erected at heights and dimensions sufficient to accommodate amateur service communications.
Q. What exactly are amateur service communications?
A.
According to Section 97.3(a)(4), et al, they are radiocommunications for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication
and technical investigations carried out by amateurs.
Q. What should I instruct my hired professional communicator to do in order to participate in the
emergency preparedness or disaster readiness testing or drilling that must immediately follow his operational testing?
A. Section 97.113(a)(3)(i) doesn’t go into any detail
on that aspect. It simply says:
A station licensee or control station operator
may participate on behalf of an employer in an emergency preparedness or disaster readiness test or drill, limited to the
duration and scope of such test or drill, and operational testing immediately prior to such test or drill. Tests or drills
that are not government-sponsored are limited to a total time of one hour per week; except that no more than twice in any
calendar year, they may be conducted for a period not to exceed 72 hours.
You might instruct your hired professional communicator to observe the time constraints stated in Section 97.113(a)(3)(i). In your role as the station licensee, you are the employer
and your professional communicator would participate on your behalf in the emergency exercise. You should,
therefore, ascertain the exact nature of the exercise in which your station would be involved. If it is
not government-sponsored, the total testing and drilling time per one week must not exceed one hour. If
it is some type of government-sponsored test or drill, other than RACES, there is no time limit.
It is often a good idea to avoid RACES involvement, therefore, because it is time limited similar to non-government.
Read Section 97.407(d)(4). Stations transmitting communications for training drills
and tests in RACES - even though they are government-sponsored, moreover - are ineligible for priority
status at all times and on all frequencies. Read Section 97.101.
Q. Must the governmental sponsor be a federal agency?
A.
No. Section 97.113(c)(3)(i) says only government. That
could include federal, state, county, borough, parish, city, etc., even foreign governments, without exception.
Q. Which part of our amateur service spectrum has been made available to the professional communicators?
A. Section 97.101(c) says at all times and on all frequencies, each control operator
must give priority to stations providing emergency communications, except to stations transmitting communications for training
drills and tests in RACES.
Q. Most of our amateur communications uses simple and reliable analogue technology.
It appears as though the digital apparatus in the Part 90 systems didn’t get the job done very well when a disaster struck.
Aside from giving way to the professional communicators, what can we amateur operators do in providing emergency communications?
A. Sharpen your technical and operating skills to the very best of your ability.
Section 97.111(a)(2) authorizes your amateur station to transmit two-way communications necessary to meet essential communication needs
and to facilitate relief actions. Section 97.111(a)(3) authorizes your amateur station to transmit two-way communications necessary
to exchange messages with a station in another FCC-regulated service while providing emergency communications.
Section 97.111(b)(4) authorizes one-way transmissions
necessary to providing emergency communications.
Q. Our amateur service
spectrum is being taken over by the government to correct shortcomings in its emergency services communications infrastructure.
The era of duly authorized persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim
and without pecuniary interest is fading away.
A.
Communications by emergency service providers was regulated, heretofore, under Part 90, Private Land Mobile Radio Services.
Those rules establish a Public Safety Radio Pool and provide for the licensing of non-federal governmental entities
- including law enforcement and fire protection – as well as medical services, rescue organizations, veterinarians,
persons with disabilities, disaster relief organizations, school buses, beach patrols, establishments in isolated places,
communications standby facilities, and emergency repair of public communications facilities. As you note,
those types of communications are now spilling over onto our amateur service spectrum, with professionals taking over from
amateurs, apparently for the very reason you cite.
Q. Section 97.503 says that our VEs’ exams must be such as to prove that the examinee
possesses the operational and technical qualifications required to perform properly the duties of an amateur service licensee.
Our examinations, therefore, are unsuitable for the professional communicators now moving onto our frequency bands.
Their employers are the logical parties to determine who best serves their needs. If some form of
FCC certification is mandatory, wouldn’t the commercial operator license make more sense?
A.
No, that would be even more ludicrous. Section 13.3 says those rules that require FCC station licensees to have certain transmitter
operation, maintenance, and repair duties performed by a commercial radio operator are contained in Parts 23, 80, and 87.
Part 80 contains the rules for stations in the maritime services and Part 87 contains the rules for the aviation services. (E-CFR
does not show a Part 23.)
Those professional communicators are obviously not migrating
to our amateur service bands to carry out transmitter maintenance and repair duties. They are being stationed
there to participate on behalf of an employer in emergency preparedness or disaster readiness tests or drills and operational
testing immediately prior to such test or drill. Read Section 97.113(a)(3(i).
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December 26, 2011
Supersedes all prior editions