[BC] ARRL Wins a Round vs FCC...

[Mike McCarthy]

It's not a big victory by any sense of the imagination.  The ARRL won 
a remand of the studies used being published completely intact  for 
review and comment and for the FCC to more completely argue why it 
selected a non-standard extraction reduction factor.   It lost on the 
two big issues of how the FCC instituted the service under Section 
302 of the Comm Act. and the fact that the FCC made the IX issue a 
minor matter as opposed to a total shut down when involving mobile operations.

The bottom line is this appeals court didn't give the ARRL what it 
wanted the most.  A full remand to reconsider BPL which will not create IX.

Now...the remand could derail BPL IF the FCC can't argue and justify 
fully why it selected 20dB instead of 40dB for the reduction 
factor.  This has substantial impacts on shortwave broadcasters 
around the world trying to reach USA listeners. Thus the ARRL could 
find it's silver lining in that ruling.

As with any ruling, it's filled with all kinds of arcane legal case 
references which lawyers understand on cursory review,  but the 
average Joe needs to re-read several times to get through it.  My 
reading of the concurring opinions is the ARRL won the remands by 
slim margins.  Both concurring opinions separately commented about 
how shaky one settled case was used as the precedent upon which the 
decision was rendered.  Not a very solid footing to argue any further 
on the two major points they lost. If the ARRL appeals further, I 
don't think it will be heard...

That said, it looks like BPL is here to stay...even if the 40dB rule 
is used. :(

73....

MM


At 06:08 PM 4/25/2008 -0500, Alan Kline wrote
>I haven't read the ruling yet--I'm still catching up on email--but 
>it sounds like the ARRL has won a round in the BPL mess...