QST, February 1989, page 9 =
The Rewrite =
As communications technology has grown ever more complicated, the FCC Rules
governing Amateur Radio have grown accordingly.  Trying to figure out the
present Part 97 is not a trivial pursuit.  With the help of the ARRL
publication, The FCC Rule Book, it is possible to ferret out the answers to
most questions about amateur operating = possible, but not always easy.
In 1980, the FCC tried to improve the situation with a Plain Language rewrite
of the amateur rules.  In this proposal, the traditional approach to writing
regulations was abandoned in favor of a question and answer format.  Now, Q
and A isnt a bad way to explain something, we use it to good advantage in The
FCC Rule Book, itself an outgrowth of the Plain Language discussion.  But
after careful review, it turned out not to be a good way to define whats
legal and what isnt in a concise, specific fashion.  There were other flaws
in the Plain Language effort, perhaps the most serious being the proposed
elimination of Section 97.1, the Basis and Purpose statement which sets out
why the government thinks Amateur Radio is a good thing.  The more that
people looked at Plain Language, the less they liked it, so, about a year
after it had been proposed, there was great relief when the FCC dropped the
idea. +