FCC affirms fine for former
amateur licencee
In an October 5 Forfeiture Order, the FCC has affirmed a $10,000 fine
it proposed earlier this year to levy on Jack Gerritsen, ex-KG6IRO, of
Bell, California.
The FCC asserts that Gerritsen doesn't have an Amateur Radio license
but continues to operate. The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau
(WTB) promptly rescinded its 2001 Amateur Radio license grant to Gerritsen
after learning of his California court conviction a year earlier for interfering
with police communications. The fine is the next step in a
case that eventually could lead to criminal prosecution.
Responding to a July FCC Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL), Gerritsen
maintained that he still has a ham ticket. He asserted that the NAL failed
to show that his interference conviction is under appeal, that the set-aside
of his amateur license was unfounded and is only a claim made by
Commission personnel; that he holds a valid license and that any possible
suspension of his license is pending a hearing, making the NAL moot until
a suspension actually occurs.
Not so, said the FCC, citing chapter and verse to back up its Forfeiture
Order. Section 1.113(a) of its rules gives the WTB 30 days from publication
to modify or set aside an action, such as a license grant, on its own
motion. As a result, the FCC said, Gerritsen's amateur application has
reverted to pending status, and no license exists.
Gerritsen also argued that he preserved his license by seeking a hearing
under §1.85 of the FCC's rules and, further, that he'd been told
by FCC personnel that he would get a hearing. Wrong again, the FCC concluded.
The
Commission pointed out that §1.85 spells out when the FCC may suspend
an operator license, but since Gerritsen has no license, just a pending
application, there is no license to suspend, and §1.85 doesn't apply.
A Hearing Designation Order for Gerritsen is said to be working its way
through the FCC bureaucracy.
Reports from Los Angeles area hams indicate that Gerritsen continues
to use KG6IRO, although the call sign appears in the FCC's Universal Licensing
System as "terminated." Recent letters have implored the ARRL
to somehow intervene in the situation.
"Imagine BPL--a million times worse," one radio amateur recently
wrote the League. For some time now, repeater owners have been shutting
down their machines rather than let an unlicensed user transmit through
them.
The FCC said in its Forfeiture Order that agents who tracked transmissions
to Gerritsen's house and interviewed him said he admitted to transmitting
on various Amateur radio frequencies as well as on various business radio
frequencies.
In a handwritten letter Gerritsen wrote while in jail last March on a
federal trespassing conviction to the president of one repeater association,
he suggested that repeater owners should tolerate his commentaries "a
few times a day."
Source: ARRL Letter - courtesy of The
American Radio Relay League
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