Amateur Radio Order Shows FCC Plugged In on Small Issues, Fletcher Heald Lawyer Says
A recent order by the FCC on a vanity call sign for an amateur radio operator shows the agency is paying attention on even small issues, Fletcher Heald lawyer Mitchell Lazarus said in a blog post. Joshua Babb, “seeking both…
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brevity and his initials,” applied for four vanity call signs ending in JB, Lazarus wrote. The FCC turned him down on each. But then the licensee for W3JB, John Birch, died. Babb applied, claiming to be a nephew of the deceased licensee. He got the call sign. The FCC took a second look, asking Babb for documentation showing he was Birch’s nephew. “The FCC deduced that Mr. Babb was claiming Mr. Birch to be his great-great-uncle -- a relationship missing from the list of exceptions,” Lazarus wrote. “Documentation or not, this would not have made Mr. Babb eligible for W3JB until after the two-year waiting period, when he would probably have to had to take his chances in a lottery.” The FCC last week proposed to take away W3JB and restore Babb’s original call sign, KD7HLX, giving him 30 days to object. The order is intriguing on several levels, Lazarus said. “It shows that even the simplest-seeming FCC functions are subject to unexpected complications,” he wrote. “It shows the FCC staff is more alert than Mr. Babb, at least, gave them credit for. It shows a surprising degree of tolerance toward Mr. Babb’s seemingly blatant misrepresentation (about being Mr. Birch’s nephew) that could have landed him in prison for five years. And, in the end, it shows that family connections really do matter.”