The decades long saga of Glenn Baxter/K1MAN has moved one more step towards
it's eventual conclusion this week with a series of events which has lead
to the revocation of his license.

As you may recall, K1MAN was fined for various infractions of FCC regulatio
ns nearly 10 years ago. The license K1MAN expired in 2005. A renewal was
filed just before the expiration date so the license remained active while
the renewal was pending. The renewal was "off-lined for enforcement activi
ty" and the case ended up in the appeals process where it languished while
the FCC's fine wound it's way though the civil court system.

The civil courts upheld the majority of the FCC's fines though a summary ju
dgement (there was no trial thankfully) a little over a year ago. There wa
s a short appeal which K1MAN lost when the three judges unanimously turned
down his appeal. With the fine established as legal K1MAN now owed the FCC
$10,000.

The off-lined renewal application remained pending though all this as the e
nforcement hearing at the FCC was put off pending the civil trial. With th
e civil trial over attention turned back to the question of K1MAN's renewal
and if he had the requisite qualifications to be a Ham radio operator.

The most recent action in the renewal case happened on Monday. The judge h
earing the case responded to a motion by FCC's enforcement lawyers to dismi
ss the pending application due to the "red light rule" which automatically
dismisses applications from people who owe the FCC money. While the judge
denied the motion, he continued the hearing and indicated that the applicat
ion may be denied using the "Red Light Rule" if the Commission wanted. Thi
s was done and the denial letter was sent on Tuesday, ending K1MAN's operat
ing authority.

K1MAN's license will remain 'active' during the appeal period. The appeal
can only be on the application of the Red Light Rule to his renewal applica
tion. I believe the appeal period is 30 days. Such an appeal will most ce
rtainly be denied, unless the fines are or have been paid. However, any ap
peal does not change the fact that K1MAN's renewal was denied and his opera
ting privileges have been removed as a result.

I don't suppose this is over, but we clearly have reached a milestone in th
is decade long process. K1MAN no longer can claim he is operating legally
as his license has now expired. Should he which to get his license back, h
e will have to pay the fine and then successfully face down the FCC who wil
l claim he is not fit to have a license. He's made it clear he won't pay t
he fine and it seem obvious that the FCC would easily prove he's unfit for
a license.

The wheels of government turn slowly, but they grind very fine...

73's

KC4UAI

On 6/26/2014 11:08 AM, KC4UAI wrote:
The wheels of government turn slowly, but they grind very fine...

73's

KC4UAI

Well yes.

Make sure that if you insist in getting in a body part waving
contest with an agency, that they don't have said appendage
the size of a California Redwood.

Jeff


--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 9:30:24 PM UTC-5, Foxs Mercantile wrote:

Make sure that if you insist in getting in a body part waving

contest with an agency, that they don't have said appendage

the size of a California Redwood.


This was no contest of the type you indicate. It was about someone who det
ermined that the rules didn't mean what they plainly say and had the mistak
en idea that armature radio was his "right" and not a privilege. Of course
all that junk going on down where the AM guys play which is sourced in vari
ous other countries didn't help the situation any.

It was interesting when I read the Judge's order that Baxter decided to for
ego the normal legal trappings and just send "profanity laced e-mails" to v
oice his objections. I'm no lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but it was mi
ldly amusing to read Baxter's ramblings and guess what the ALJ was going to
say about it. I'm going to miss that. I'll give Baxter this, while he obv
iously didn't care about the rules, he did know enough of the obscure heari
ng procedure to tie the process up in knots.

So, if there was any waving being done, it was decidedly one sided. Despit
e all the muddy water created during this process, the FCC actually did wha
t they needed to do. Yes it took two decades, which is way too long, but i
f Baxter insists on staying on the air they will no doubt deal with that in
turn.

I do have one complaint, in that this whole process takes way too long. Th
e FCC needs to make the NAL process faster and they need to make it clear i
n their rules that if you have an affirmed NAL, even if it is not yet out f
or collection by the DOJ, any applications you file are subject to the red
light rule and will be dismissed and any pending application which is under
appeal is also dismissed by default. Allow for an appeal of course, but in
the case of an affirmed NAL which is unpaid, the license does not remain a
ctive during the appeal. This would have removed K1MAN's privileges nearly
10 years ago, which is really the point of all this effort. It certainly
wasn't the money as I'm sure they've spent more than the fine paying the la
wyers and the judge to deal with this.

In any case, I believe K1MAN's license will be added to the available call
list and become available as a vanity call in October of 2016. Woe to the
ham who gets that call, even if it is pretty short in CW and not a bad leng
th phonetically either. Especially for a ham who is not familiar with the
long history of the call and likes to work AM on 40 Meters...

Those of us who followed this story for the last 10 years realize the massi
ve damage this one man has inflicted on ham radio's reputation. He's not th
e only one acting lawless on 40 meters (or anyplace else they congregate),
but he's been the lightning rod case for the last decade here in the USA.
As a group, if we care about our hobby, we need to do something to make sur
e this mess ends. We must police ourselves in all countries and come up wit
h effective ways and operating practices that strongly discourage such misb
ehavior.

Which, by the way, is why I was involved in the creation of this moderated
news group. It was my attempt to show that there is a better way and that
the normal descent into the cesspool caused by engaging such behavior with
similar tactics is not going to work. It is also why the FCC forbids hams
from knowingly talking to unlicensed people who happen to have radios.

But now we are on another topic...

KC4UAI