{"id":1698,"date":"2025-01-21T18:23:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T23:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2025-01-21T18:23:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T23:23:19","slug":"34000-fine-for-interference-upheld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/34000-fine-for-interference-upheld\/","title":{"rendered":"$34,000 Fine for Interference Upheld"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left\"><blockquote><p><strong>FCC Upholds Record $34,000 Forfeiture Against Amateur Licensee<\/strong><br><em>01\/10\/2025<\/em>The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assessed a record\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/document\/fcc-affirms-34k-penalty-unauthorized-operation-and-interference\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$34,000 forfeiture<\/a>\u00a0against an amateur radio licensee for \u201cwillfully and repeatedly operating a radio station without authorization and interfering with the radio communications of the United States Forest Service \u2026 while the U.S. Forest Service and the Idaho Department of Lands were attempting to direct the operations of fire suppression aircraft working a 1,000-acre wildfire on national forest land outside of Elk River, Idaho.\u201d<br>As ARRL News first reported in 2022, the FCC proposed the fine against Jason Frawley of Lewiston, Idaho, for allegedly interfering with radio operations of the U.S. Forest Service during firefighting activities for the Johnson Creek Fire near Elk River in July 2021. The FCC stated in the Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) that Frawley holds an Extra-class Amateur Radio Service license, WA7CQ, and is the owner\/operator of Leader Communications LLC, licensee of eight microwave licenses and one business license.<br>In response, Frawley acknowledged that he operated on a frequency reserved for government use and for which he lacked authorization but argues that he did not cause interference to the government\u2019s fire suppression activities that were being coordinated on the channel and acted with \u201cgood faith and non-malicious intent to help.\u201d\u00a0 Frawley requested a reduction or cancellation of the proposed forfeiture based on the number and duration of the unauthorized transmissions, his history of compliance and corrective measures, and his inability to pay the proposed forfeiture.<br>In the Forfeiture Order released on January 3, 2025, the FCC rejected Frawley\u2019s request and assessed the full proposed forfeiture of $34,000.\u00a0 Read more about the story\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrl.org\/news\/fcc-proposes-record-34-000-fine-for-alleged-interference-and-unauthorized-transmissions-during-idaho\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">in previous coverage from ARRL News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p><cite>Source: ARRL<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrl.org\/news\/fcc-upholds-record-34-000-forfeiture-against-amateur-licensee\">https:\/\/www.arrl.org\/news\/fcc-upholds-record-34-000-forfeiture-against-amateur-licensee<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FCC Upholds Record $34,000 Forfeiture Against Amateur Licensee01\/10\/2025The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assessed a record\u00a0$34,000 forfeiture\u00a0against an amateur radio licensee for \u201cwillfully and repeatedly operating a radio station without authorization and interfering with the radio communications of the United States Forest Service \u2026 while the U.S. Forest Service and the Idaho Department of Lands were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1699,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/1699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcares.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}