Those who would want any kind of license fees must remember some of the downside:
- it would reduce the number of new entrants - it would decrease retention of previously licensed hams fewer ham numbers = less political clout. Numbers mean a LOT! Even if they are not active operators. To have any kind of impact, the licensing would have to be quite large in order to get anyone's attention. Probably $30 to $50 a year or even more. Perhaps some may not be aware that here in the U.S., federal law, with only a few exceptions, requires that all revenue fees collected by government agencies goes into the general revenue treasury and can NOT be allocated for the agency that collects the revenue. That was one of things we hashed out about 25 years ago or so:) For those who are not ARRL members, you do give up most of your ability to lobby the FCC since it is the only national organization with any clout at all. The reason you do not currently pay a stiff fee for your license is only due to one reason ... the intense lobbying efforts and success by the ARRL in the past. The ARRL is a democratic organization with people who you vote for. Both your division level and section level. What people who complain about the ARRL are really saying is that they don't like it that their views are not the majority view which most of the time is reflected by the leadership. Sometimes they will take a position that is unpopular and they pay a price for that. But all of our leaders are doing a constant balancing act to try and find the best compromise possible. That is why you must keep your directors and SM aware of your viewpoints. E-mail makes that easy. The way I figure it, ARRL dues are basically free. And you get a high quality magazine thrown in too! Pretty hard to beat. And we pay the little bit extra so both my wife and I are members. The only thing I do regret is not paying for a lifetime membership when I was much younger. But who knew:) 73, Rick, KV9U -----Original Message----- From: Mike/k1eg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 12:41 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] FCC Doesn't Understand I'm sorry re-imposing a license fee won't stop it. If all of us had to pay a fee it wouldn't even be a drop of water in the bucket compared to what commercial groups could muster up. Re-examination every 10 years would serve no purpose but to thin out how many hams we have today. In a time when we aren't bringing in the younger people to ham radio our voice to Government is getting weaker rather than stronger which is what is sorely needed. Ok some people will say that we have the ARRL to speak for us but many Amateurs don't belong to it for one reason or another and this weakens their voice to the FCC. I myself just recently went back to becoming a member even though I disagree with a lot of the stuff they do. I feel that unless they can present a large voting block to Congress and the FCC we could be in trouble down the road. Of course I also believe that the ARRL needs to change to represent what the Amateur community wants not what the board wants. This would mean that it is time to change what we have so that the whole membership would vote for the board members not the way it is done now. Mike K1EG -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.7 - Release Date: 4/12/2005 The K3UK DIGITAL MODES SPOTTING CLUSTER AT telnet://208.15.25.196/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
