FCC PASSES RULE DE-REGULATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR REPEATER COMMUNICATIONS PR DOCKET 93-85 RE-DEFINES THE WORD "REPEATER" By Tom Blackwell, N5GAR On April 13, 1994, the Federal Communications Commission released a long awaited Report and Order, addressing issues raised in a Petition for Rule Making submitted in January, 1991. It is now being published in the Federal Register. The new rules become effective June 1, 1994. The Rule on the responsibility for repeater communications, in part 97.205(g), was combined in the proceeding with new rules on high speed digital message forwarding systems, i.e. packet. Joe Jarrett, K5FOG, and I filed a Petition for Rule Making on the matter of voice repeaters, after the ARRL asked that its petition on a similar issue be withdrawn. We asked for a new section, 97.205(g), to provide relief from responsibility for repeater owners who experienced improper transmissions originated by others. The FCC assigned it number RM-7649. In March, 1993, this was included in PR Docket 93-85, along with the other issues. I developed the proposed language because of various repeater problems I had observed in the Dallas area over a period of years, on my study of the Communications Act, and the amateur repeater rules. Repeater owners found themselves in a position of having to constantly interpret the Commission's rules, and judge the communications originated by others. This responsibility proved, at times, to be complex, and clouded by personal politics. Long term controversies developed where individual repeater owners and control operators turned off their systems on other users. The answer was de-regulation for the repeater operators, to put all the legal responsibility for a communication on the person originating the transmission. With the new rule, the repeater owner no longer has to worry about being accountable for communications he retransmits inadvertently. Clearly, a control operator does not have the opportunity to know the content of someone else's communication until it is completed. The rule states: 97.205(g) The control operator of a repeater that retransmits inadvertently communications that violate the rules in this Part is not accountable for the violative communications. The definition of a repeater, in Part 97.3, is changed to read: (36) Repeater. An amateur station that simultaneously retransmits the transmission of another amateur station on a different channel or channels. The Notice, FCC 94-76, was unanimously approved by the Commissioners. It follows over three years of process under the Federal Administrative Procedure Act, which included a comment period and reply comment period. RM-7649 was endorsed by a number of clubs, organizations, news services and individuals, representing many constituencies of the hobby. The list includes the Westlink Report (Burt Hicks, Editor), the Amateur Radio News Service (Bill Pasternak, Editor), and 73 Magazine (Dr. Wayne Green, Publisher). Also in the Report and Order are changes in rules regarding high speed digital message forwarding systems, brought on by petitions from others. In these networks, a message is later re-transmitted from system to system. The Commission decided to require control operators of the first forwarding station to either authenticate the identity of the station from which it accepts communications, or accept responsibility for the content of the message. The decision is not without explanation. The Commission believes the vulnerability of an unsupervised system would make it an easy target for misuse by "uncooperative operators" and non-licensees. It says it would be difficult to establish after the fact that a particular station originated a high speed digital transmission, so there must be on-going oversight of the system. With this, the Commission adopted the following: 97.219 Message forwarding system. (a) Any amateur station may participate in a message forwarding system, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held. (b) For stations participating in a message forwarding system, the control operator of the station originating a message is primarily accountable for any violation of the rules in this Part contained in the message. (c) Except as noted in paragraph (d) of this section, for stations participating in a message forwarding system, the control operators of forwarding stations that retransmit inadvertently communications that violate the rules in this Part are not accountable for the violative communications. They are, however, responsible for discontinuing such communications once they become aware of their presence. (d) For stations participating in a message forwarding system, the control operator of the first forwarding station must: (1) Authenticate the identity of the station from which it accepts communications on behalf of the system; or (2) Accept accountability for any violation of the rules in this Part contained in messages it retransmits to the system. It has adopted the following definitions: 97.3 Definitions. (28) Message forwarding system. A group of amateur stations participating in a voluntary, cooperative, interactive arrangement where communications are sent from the control operator of an originating station to the control operator of one or more destination stations by one or more forwarding stations. (7) Auxiliary station. An amateur station, other than in a message forwarding system, that is transmitting communications point-to-point within a system of cooperating amateur stations. It is hoped that this deregulation of the responsibility for the owners of voice repeaters will not only be fair, it will reduce the need for control operators to constantly "police" their repeaters, on perceiving a need to protect their licenses. It is also hoped that the situation that developed where operators of linked packet systems received forfeiture notices from the FCC is now precluded. For further information, contact: Tom Blackwell, N5GAR P.O. Box 25403 Dallas, Texas 75225