Seriously?
Who's job is it to worry about the legality of who is operating? You?
Me? No. The station owner, the operators and the governing radio
bodies. Who exactly is the control op at remote repeaters? I can
assure you that very few repeater owners have control ops on 24x7. Once
again is this our problem? No.
Is paying to be a member of a repeater club is somehow different? Would
you feel better if they allowed you to join their remote radio club
instead? That is exactly what they are offering. Your repeater club
dues go to pay for the equipment and your ability to use said equipment
especially in a CLOSED repeater scenario.
Why is this our problem when for years we turned our backs, winked,
smirked at all the stations KNOWN to be running well in excess of the
regulated power limits imposed by the governing authorities? How many
DQ's happened because of power in the last 40 years? I just saw one in
the CQ WW SSB write up. I can't recall ever seeing another. We could
go on and on and on about all the FUNNY BUSINESS that happened in
contesting and DX over the years.
Is there really any difference in renting my house antennas and being
there or renting remote time. As long as both are done legally within
the confines of the contest rules and governing communication bodies
they are identical.
I checked out the remotehamradio.com site. If you can afford their
prices I bet you can afford to build your own station. Their high end
option does not even give you enough minutes in the month for a 48 hour
contest. Other issues are how many people will be on at the same time,
etc. I wish them well though as this is probably the norm in the future
as government's across the globe continue to limit what we can and can't
do in our homes especially in cites and suburbia.
Do I think that for pay remote sites are going to be springing up all
over the place? No.
Would I love to be able to rent out J6M (Fictional) while in W0 land if
it were legal? Yes if the price were considerably less than the actual
travel and legal, which currently it is not. It is however legal from
other US territories.
Is this really a contesting issue? No.
Do I ever wish for other hams or people to fail miserably? NEVER and I
am really shocked to see this from a guy that given so much to ham radio
and contesting.
On 4/15/2013 3:55 PM, Pete Smith N4ZR wrote:
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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