From: pdh@netcom.com (Phil Howard )
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.policy
Subject: Re: Truckers, Pizza, Policy - an idea.
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:52:50 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

rossi@gvlf9-q.gvl.unisys.com (Pete Rossi) writes:

>I see no problems with a ham making *occasional* use of his radio to
>contact a business establishment as long as it does not benefit HIS OWN
>business.  For example, if I use my ham radio to order pizza on the
>autopatch creates no financial gain to me.  The pizza store would get
>the business whether he got the order by regular telephone, autopatch, or
>carrier pigeon.  The owner of the pizza store, however, could NOT use
>ham radio in any way to the benefit of HIS pizza business such as maintain
>contact between delivery drivers, etc.. 

Another example would be the pizza business setting up a ham radio station
as alternative to the telephone for taking the orders.  Clearly this is the
kind of business thing we do *NOT* want happening.


>Another way of looking at it is that for any kind of business related uses,
>a business would not be allowed to INITIATE any kind of business traffic
>for his own business, however, he could participate in the business traffic
>initiated by the person who has no affiliation with the business.  This would
>allow a private individual to call a business and order something, call for
>a tow truck, etc, etc, but he could NOT call his own business and conduct
>any kind of business traffic (check for messages, etc.) since he would be
>using the ham radio for the benefit of his OWN business.
>
>This restriction would also take of business to business traffic too.  If a
>ham from Fred's garage, while out towing a car, calls Joe's pizza to order
>lunch that would be OK since it does not directly benefit the garage business.
>But the same ham from Fred's garage could NOT call Bob's auto parts to order
>a water pump for the car he is towing.

I think we do need to draw a line at some point.  For example there should
be some reasonable cause for using ham radio to place the personal order.
I would find it acceptable if the ham from Fred's garage was going to be
on the work site for a long time, and long jobs were unusual and he wanted
a pizza to eat during a break.  But if it is an expected part of his job
to be out so long as to need to eat while out, his employer should be the
one taking care of it.  Ham radio should be used if he has no reason to
ordinarily need some other means of communications (land mobile to his base
or a cellular telephone) or the means is currently and ordinarily unusable
(the folks at Fred's garage have gone home for the day so no one is manning
the base).

The line, unfortunately, is still tricky to judge.  It would be best to
not pick on individual instances, but rather look for overall patterns
of abuse.  We don't jump on someone just because they went for 11 minutes
before ID-ing.  If they regular span 30 minutes between IDs, then it would
be time to suggest they get their act together.  This is the same kind of
thing we should apply to "personal business" uses.

Ordering a pizza via an autopatch to be delivered to a remote location
(not all pizza places would do that anyway) is certainly *NOT* a violation
in the same class as intentional interference, for example.  But which
one seems to wake up more armchair lawyers who are more interesting in
picking on details to prove their knowledge of the rules?
-- 
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| Phil Howard  ---  KA9WGN  ---  pdh@netcom.com   |   "The problem with |
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