FCC: Amateur Radio Not an emergency service

From The WB7TJD Wiki

The FCC raised a few eyebrows by including the following sentence in its Public Notice DA 09-2259 (see page 72, this issue):&NBSp; "While the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communications service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications, is one of the underlying principles of the amateur service, the amateur service is not an emergency radio service [emphasis added]."

We might take umbrage at that, but the fact is that you'd be hard pressed to find a definition for "emergency radio service" -- or any other radio service that would qualify as one.  The ITU Radio Regulations make no use of the term; rather, the ITU defines "safety service" as "Any radiocommunication service used permanently or temporarily for the safeguarding of human life and property" and offers radionavigation and other safety services a bit of extra protection against harmful interference.  The ITU recognizes that a wide variety of radio services including the amateur and amateur-satellite services play a role in public protection and disaster relief (PPDR).

Even the FCC itself no longer uses the term "emergency radio service."  There was once a Special Emergency Radio Service (SERS) but it disappeared a decade ago in a consolidation of Private Land Mobile Radio services.  SERS spectrum is now part of the Public Safety Pool.

So, let's not waste a lot of energy worrying about what the FCC thinks we are not.  Like many other radio services, the amateur service sometimes provides emergency communications.  That's not our day-in, day-out function, but neither is it the daily function of any other radio service that's defined in the FCC rules.  The point that the FCC presumably was trying to make is that we are not just an emergency radio service.  We have a much broader mission as "a voluntary, non-commercial communication service authorized for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by licensed persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest." Our "self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations" are what create our value to the public.  That value doesn't come from our licenses; it comes from the knowledge we have acquired, the skills we have developed, and the stations we have constructed in pursuit of our "personal aims" in the field of radiocommunication.

The result is a radio service that is uniquely equipped to serve in emergencies.  If we're not an "emergency radio service" it is only because we are so much more.

-- If I am tired now why do I need to RETIRE later???

This article by Dan, N0/FPE