FCC Radio Station Authorization

[jmschmidt]

Thanks hellosailor, for reminding me. Yes, federal law says government agencies, if they charge fees, have render their services to the public "at cost". They avoid this with passports because the Passport Office (State Dept.) pays the Postal Service something like 80 or 90 bucks per application to keep them afloat so that becomes a "cost" to the Passport Office. I'm sure there is a similar subterfuge with radio station licenses. I think most of us pay those people a hell of lot of taxes. I'm not surprised by the governments definition of "cost" since the average federal worker is paid double that of a similar private sector worker and they retire with a cost-of- living adjusted pensions.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Chris, that's like saying it should cost a fortune to paint my room, because the painter must first mine the pigments and manufacture the paint, all custom to my job.

Development costs? Hell no, not when you can buy it in any software store or download it from any open source project library.

I go the hardware store, for $25 I buy a gallon of paint. I don't pay someone a hundred grand to reinvent "paint" for the project.

Yep, that's what I'm saying.

And no, even "commercial-off-the-shelf" (COTS) software is only a starting point; customization $$$ starts from there.

Originally Posted by secrabtree

Your reasoning is based upon a poor assumption. You have assumed that you don't pay the paint store for the cost of research and development. You DO! The big difference is that the research and development costs to make the paint are amortised over the millions and millions of gallons of paint sold. But the boaters share of the cost of operating the FCC must be amortised over a far fewer number of boaters. There's probably fewer boaters in the United states than the number of gallons of paint sold EACH DAY.

What he said.

As I said before, I'm not defending FCC or anyone else... Just offering some insight into the cost of software.

-Chris

[cabo_sailor]

I applied for my station license and hopefully MMSI from the FCC a couple of weeks ago. When I saw the $215 fee, thought I'd done something wrong.

Any idea how long it takes to process? I filed on line and it took two afternoons to figure out their crazy website.

Rich


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[sailcrazy]

Can you tell me where/how you applied for your station license? I need to do that, and have not found the proper address/form to apply.

[cabo_sailor]

I was helped by skipmac,
Here is his post::

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/....php?p=1912906

I guess I need to call FCC since its been more than a few days.


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[cabo_sailor]

Two things, the FCC issued my station license and MMSI the next day. Unfortunately I had a typo in my email address. They just sent me instructions on how to retrieve it. Be careful, their email ended up in my spam folder.

I also need to get a restricted radiotelephone license unless I can find the old one that I had when I was flying.


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[hellosailor]

cabo-
Since the restricted radiotelephone license is "good for life", you should still be able to find yourself listed in the FCC database. Which sometimes requires their help to locate or search, even online.
If you do find it, apply for an "FRN" which then lists all of your FCC licenses linked in one place, and add any others there.