In 1984, a group of technician class ham radio operators harassed me while I was trying to get help in my stalled car.
They angered me and I cursed them over the radio frequency I was trying to get help on. I didn't realize that they were trying to
set me up by baiting and harrassing me while recording my transmissions and blanking theirs. I didn't have the class of license that
authorized my use of the frequency I occupied, although a few years earlier licensees with the class of novice, the class
of operators license I held at that time, were given permisssion to use the frequency I was occupying. I wasn't charged with using profanity on the airwaves.
I was charged with using a frequency outside of my class of operators permit even though it was an emergency, and a very unpleasant evening. The judge even told me, as part of the order, that I couldn't
use a cordless phone until I got my license back. When my license was restored, finally as amateur radio station WK2B, I had
passed the examination required by the Federal Communications Commission allowing the use of all available
frequencies permitted by the highest class of license, the Extra Class, which I had obtained by rigorous,
independent study of electronics theory and practice. I never attended any "ham radio school" or class other than
Morse Code classes, taught by the Navy, when I was a fourteen year old Explorer Scout.
The Navy instructors taught me how to send and receive Morse Code faster than thirty words a minute before I was fifteen years
old. I was the best code receiver in the class and awarded a merit badge from the Boy Scouts of America Chickasaw Council.
Quote from QRZ.Com : "Section 301 enforcements are good for the quality of Amateur Radio and shell out a good ol' fashioned butt kickin'.
I have some issues with education and the volunteer examiner program basically because when I got my license I had
to drive from Memphis to New Orleans to attend the scheduled test supervised by an FCC representative (paid,not a
volunteer) and it was there that I got my General Class license on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the
Communications Act of 1934. I had to take it again on February 21,1987,three years later from three volunteer
examiners. Henry Leggett, WD4Q, James Gaudy, K4HPP, and Harry Simpson, W4MI (sk) because of infractions and other unpleasant
and stupid things unbecoming of amateur radio and area hams. Many questions of intregrity are surfacing in the area
of Volunteer Examiner infractions, which is not to imply that some amateurs would not make excellent examiners, as the three I tested
with in 1987 who are beyond the question of integrity and were and are highly respected and honorable. I believe the
FCC should supervise all examination sessions once again as they did prior to the volunteer examiner program. The
quality of amateur radio would improve dramatically. Other than that I still enjoy the hobby as I have since I was a
kid."
I've been told that three of the amateur radio operators involved in the set up and prosecution are dead; one from what is alleged to
have been a sex change operation gone bad, and a fourth was convicted of beating his wife.
