Topband: FCC regulations circa 1960's

[Louis Parascondola]

 Tom as I recall the ruling was Anyone can talk over a ham radio as long as the station licensee was the control operator.  Which meant that he controlled all transmissions and he identified the station with his call and in his voice.  If another ham with a lower license wanted to operate under his frequency jurisdiction he could be the control OP and use his call.  Out of his jurisdiction it would be the same as an unlicensed ham.  This is my recollection.

Lou W1QJ

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-----Original Message-----
From: Tom W8JI <w8ji at w8ji.com>
To: jkaufmann <jkaufmann at alum.mit.edu>; topband <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Fri, Jan 15, 2016 07:21 PM
Subject: Topband: FCC regulations circa 1960's


> I'm almost certain that all of his serious DXing was done from the water
> tower location.  He also had a 160m station at his home, but it was on a
> very small urban lot and as I recall, he had only a low dipole up for 160m
> there.
>
> Whenever I heard him operating from the water tower site, he would sign
> W1BB/1 to indicate portable operation but I guess that was required back
> then.
>


That's correct, if you think back we assigned a station address and a 
operator address on our licenses. Today, we only have an operator contact 
address. There is no station location or license location except as defined 
within this boundary:

(1) Within 50 km of the Earth's surface and at a place where the amateur 
service is regulated by the FCC;
(2) Within 50 km of the Earth's surface and aboard any vessel or craft that 
is documented or registered in the United States; or

(3) More than 50 km above the Earth's surface aboard any craft that is 
documented or registered in the United States.

Our station license covers the entire jurisdiction of the FCC, rather than a 
street address like it did in the 70's and earlier and it is any radio we 
control. Thus we no longer need to sign / district  or mobile, or report to 
the FCC when we are going to operate away from home more than a certain time 
or distance.

The station location license is gone. It is now everywhere the FCC controls 
as one big location, anywhere we control a radio.

Stew had to sign /1 because at that time station licenses were location 
specific. There was no station license assigned to the water tower address. 
He was legally required to use /1.

If there was a station license there, like W1XX, it would have been W1XX. 
Not W1BB.

What I'm not sure of is operating above the class of the a station location, 
prior to the elimination of the station license we used to get (I think it 
was listed at the top of the license as "transmitter location or authorized 
remote location" ). Mine always said "same as below" :-) .

Does anyone recall that rule? I know remote control locations had to be 
licensed, but what was the identifier when using another Ham's station who 
had lower license class but a station license assigned to that address?

73 Tom




 unless Stew's class allowed operation outside that station license class. 
Then it would have been both calls, but I can't recall if it was W1XX/W1BB 
or the other way. 

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