Well, I've apparent stirred up quite a fuss.
First, I was aware of the Remotehamradio exercise, and hope it fails
miserably. I just couldn't recall a url or the other specifics. As to
the legality - the original intent of the "pecuniary interest" language
was to prevent competition with the commercial communications services.
This is why the United States had to negotiate third-party agreements
with foreign countries. To my mind, renting a ham station by the minute
is simply requiring people to pay to achieve "amateur" communications.
What you exchange on the air, be it a contest exchange, a phone patch,
or chit chat about the weather, should not be purchasable.
Several people have written me off the reflector asking what the
difference is between this and renting a QTH that includes an operating
ham station. There are several, to my mind. First, the visiting op
must comply with whatever local licensing requirements there are.
Second, he/she must function as the control operator. Who would do
that in a rent-a-QSO situation? And finally, is there a single person
renting out a ham QTH who recoups from the rental the amount he has
spent on the station?
Ultimately, the lawyers may say that none of this matters, but I think
it should. And "should" is, of course, a matter of opinion.
73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.
On 4/15/2013 12:20 PM, iain macdonnell - N6ML wrote:
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Pete Smith N4ZR<n4zr@contesting.com> wrote:
I *would* be opposed if, as someone has suggested, entrepreneurs set up
excellent stations and collected "rent" for allowing them to be used for
contesting. As I think I've said before, I don't even believe that would be
legal in the US. I hope not.
Don't know about contesting, but this is being done already;
http://www.remotehamradio.com/inquire/
Merits of that particular implementation aside; I believe that the
intent of the FCC rules is to prevent use of amateur communications to
do business - e.g. you can't promote/sell/buy goods or services over
the air (there's an explicit exception for trading equipment normally
used in an amateur station). You could argue semantics and claim that
renting use of a station constitutes a "pecuniary interest", but then
wouldn't that make NP2N's rental station on St Croix illegal too?
73,
~iain / N6ML
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