Alek & guys....
Sorry, Alek, but in my opinion your last comment is way off the
reservation. Venturing dangerously close to the precipice of politics, the
fact that a whole series of U.S. congresses and presidents in this century
have gnawed away at the liberties guaranteed by our Constitution & Bill of
Rights hardly makes the whole thing "...a big pile of bull." I presume that
your insulting comment stems from aggravation that an Australian company
evidently was cited at Dayton for not observing the long-standing and
published FCC rules to which those of us in the States also are required to
conform.
FCC rules in force since April 1978 (21 years) require that every rf power
amplifier manufactured for sale in the US must be FCC type-accepted before
being offered for sale. Amps pending FCC T/A may be exhibited only (a) if a
disclaimer is prominently displayed, indicating that the amp is not yet FCC
approved and therefore may not be and is not offered for sale or lease, and
(b) "cold" - that is, may not be demonstrated "hot," even into a dummy
load.
Type acceptance requires submission to the FCC of test data demonstrating
that the amplifier design in question does conform to the rules, which deal
primarily with gain (CB-related, as several guys already have noted) and
spurious emissions. FCC also retains the right to require submission of a
sample amp for testing in their labs, although I don't think they've done
much of that in the past decade.
There probably aren't many other Americans (outside the so-called "militia
movement") who resent and despise our federal government's intrusions
against our Constitutional rights any more than I do. And I believe the
FCC's rules intended to prevent use of ham amplifiers by CBers were and are
ineffectual and misguided. Considering FCC's failure to even try to enforce
them for most of the past 20 years, they're typical bureaucratic
damnfoolishness.
I do think it's only logical to require that commercially-built power amps
be spectrally clean to the very reasonable extent required by FCC rules. I
have no respect for the manufacturers of "amateur radio" amps who blatantly
ignore FCC rules that prohibit import and/or sale of any non-type-accepted
(and presumably non-type-acceptable") amps to US hams. These guys - you all
know who they are - usually have the devious good sense to label "2500W"
and larger amps "export only," but does anyone really doubt that they ship
direct to any US buyer with the cash? Obviously it would be well within the
technical ability, and to the financial benefit, of legitimate amplifier
engineers and manufacturers such as Alpha/Power and TenTec to sell BIG
qro-plus amps to all comers. We, wish that FCC would either suspend the
rules entirely or enforce them vigorously and even-handedly.
In the meantime, the same rules apply to everyone and it appears from here
that the United States has the most wide-open electronic equipment import
market in the world. Last time I checked, the import duty on amateur power
amplifiers was something like one-half of one percent. (What is it in VK?)
Anyone with a good product has carte blanche to succeed in the American
market on the same terms and under the same rules that apply to everyone.
Whew --- somebody musta lit my fuse. Sorry for the space, gents! I'll
gladly read counterpoints but probably won't have time to reply to each.
Got the fire extinguisher handy! Flame away.
73, Dick W0ID (from the Land of the Free and the home of the Braves)
>>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Alek Petkovic [SMTP:vk6apk@eon.net.au]
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 4:34 PM
To: amps@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [AMPS] FCC Actions at Dayton
Thanks for the explanations guys.
One of those named in the mailing by Jim, could hardly be classed as an
"individual amateur". He runs the largest radio manufacturing business
operating today in Australia, supplying equipment for commercial, amateur
and government use. Hardly a backyard operation.
I always suspected that stuff about "America, the Land of the Free" was a
big pile of bull.
73 again,
Alek.
At 05:17 PM 05/20/1999 -0500, Grover wrote:
>Individual Amateurs selling "Non Type Accepted" amplifiers they
>manufacture. FCC rules limit that to one per year. Certain named
operators
>have chosen to ignore that rule and have been warned to cease and desist.
>
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