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FROM PORKLINE---News heard 'round the world.
The ARRL Letter Online
FCC PROPOSES TUCKER CALL
SIGN REDUCTION PLAN
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The FCC has proposed consolidating the call sign holdings of California's
Tucker family to reduce the overall number of call signs held by family
members from 36 to 14.
In a letter November 3 to the Tucker family's attorney, FCC Special
Counsel for Amateur
Radio Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth outlined an FCC recommendation that
would let individual members keep some of the call signs granted
earliest. The plan would leave family patriarch Roy Tucker, N6TK, with
three of seven call signs granted November 4, 1996, and Kathryn Tucker,
AA6TK, Kent Tucker, AA6KT, and Eric Tucker, AA6ET, each with three of eight
call signs granted to each November 4, 1996. Nancy Tucker, W5NAN, would
be permitted to retain two club station call signs assigned to her January
9, 1998.
Hollingsworth said this week that the FCC's solution represented
"an attempt to meet them at a reasonable halfway point to solve the problem."
In their response to an FCC inquiry this past summer, the Tuckers had
proposed to consolidate the club call signs in a manner that would result
in a total of 27 rather than 36 club signs granted to family members, the
FCC said. In its November 3 letter the FCC noted that the Tucker family
collectively received 31 club station call signs grants on the same day.
"That, coupled with the information submitted that shows that family
members appointed each other trustee in 29 instances, stretches the credibility
of their claim that these are legitimate clubs," Hollingsworth wrote.
The FCC said the Tuckers, in their response to the FCC's inquiry this
summer, failed to provide meeting times or dates, proposed meeting time
or locations within the coming year, copies of meeting minutes, or organizational
documents. The FCC said the Tuckers also declined to provide requested
club membership information, offering instead an explanation for their
refusal. According to the FCC, the Tuckers did not even provide the number
of members for each club, but did claim to have organizational documents.
Hollingsworth says Tucker family members have vowed to demand a full
hearing before an administrative law judge prior to any attempts by the
FCC to revoke the club station grants at issue. He says the FCC is ready
for that possibility. The FCC letter says that if the Tucker family does
not respond within 20 days, the Commission will "adjust" the family's club
station call sign holdings according to the plan outlined in the letter.
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