A Message Regarding License Cost Increases

When I originally went to either “https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/” or “https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings”, and initially ONLY entered in  “20-270”, the best that I could find were a bunch of other peoples comments.  Doing this, I didn’t see an obvious way to add a comment of my own.

Then I came across an easy to follow document from another Ham, which walked me through the easy steps to get a basic description of the proposed change, and submit a comment to the FCC about their Licensing fee proposal.  If you want to submit your own comment (which I highly recommend that you do), it helps if you review some of the other comments (for ideas,…), and write up what you want to say first; then just follow the simple steps (paraphrased and embellished below).  Be aware that the FCC’s online form accepts a variety of formats for attachments (e.g., PDF, txt, ppt, pptx, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, rtf, dwg,…); I used PDF.

Referenced Document

STEPS:

  • Go to “https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings“.
  • In the first box, type “20-270“; it should display a couple options to choose from.
  • Select the “Amendment of the Schedule of Application Fees…“.
  • Then fill out the remainder of the required fields, including,…
    • Name
    • Email
    • Type of filing (i.e., select “COMMENT”)
    • Address of … (i.e., select “Filer”)
    • Address, City, State, Zip (i.e., enter your mailing address)
  • Drop in the file containing your Comments to the FCC regarding the proposed fee assessment.
  • I recommend that you check the box requesting an “Email Confirmation“.
  • Review what you typed (i.e., just in case,…)
    • If it looks OK, select to “Continue to review screen“.
  • If anything is invalid (or missing) in the basic things you filled in, it’ll complain, with an explanation at the top of the page.
    • If your basic entries were OK and complete, it’ll progress to a “Review page”.
  • Review it all again (just to be sure).  If there are any problems, go back and fix them.
    • Once everything looks good, select “Submit“.
  • It should return with a “Confirmation” screen, to acknowledge that your comment was submitted.
  • Now, you are basically done;
    • … but if you had requested an “Email Confirmation” (see above), then you should receive an Email acknowledgement as well.  Mine only took a few minutes.

Feel free to share this information with the other Hams. 

We should try to get as many people as we can to submit comments to the FCC. 
(NOTE:  you don’t have to be a licensed Ham to submit a comment!)

Be well.

Vern

June is amateur radio month!

(Tuesday June 4, 2019 – Ventura, CA) At their regular meeting of June 4, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors presented a proclamation designating June as “Amateur Radio Month” in recognition of the volunteerism provided by the county’s emergency communications volunteers.

Accepting the proclamation were John Kitchens, NS6X, ARRL Santa Barbara Section Manager, and Rob Hanson, W6RH, ARES District Emergency Coordinator and ACS Radio Officer for Ventura County.

They were joined by a cadre of communications volunteers and representatives of several Ventura County Amateur Radio Clubs, each of which invited the supervisors to inspect their annual Field Day operations on June 22 and 23. .

-submitted by Jeff Reinhardt AA6JR, ARRL Public Information Coordinator, Santa Barbara Section