RadioBanter - View Single Post - 05-235

November 26th 05, 01:26 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

wrote:

In 1951 there was no Internet, no easy way to "talk" to the
FCC except through legal outfits and lobbying organizations
all using the "proper" format in their paperwork. Everything
was surface mail if you couldn't afford special couriers.
The League could afford a legal firm then and they filed
nice legalese documents with the Commission. With a relative
scarcity of correspondence incoming they could pay attention
to the League then. The League enjoyed a high place on
amateur regulation correspondence with the FCC then. Any
individual writing longhand, without legal terms or in any
"approved" format got chuckled at. Things were more
"patrician" then.

Did you work for FCC in 1951, Len? Did you see FCC chuckling
at handwritten letters?

Things are a bit different now. Internet access to ALL
government is faster than overnight express mail. FCC has
to accept ALL filings. By law.

It's always been that way, Len.

The correspondence on hot-
ticket Dockets is enormous compared to more than a half
century ago.

Fun fact:

Back about 1964 - a bit more than a dozen years after 1951, and more
than 25 years before "the internet went public", the proposed changes
that would come to be known as "incentive licensing" caused FCC to
receive over 6000 comments. Back then the US amateur population was
less than half what it is today, and practically all of them went by US
mail.

Did the FCC "chuckle" over them?