Greetings and welcome to the Florida Repeater Discussion List,

I am Bryan Fields, W9CR. 

I’m involved in amateur radio in the Tampa Bay area, with membership in four local clubs and chairman of the Technical Committee for my local group.

Professionally I am a Network Architect with a major telecom company.  I’ve been a licensed amateur since 1995 (over 2/3 of my life), hold a GROL+Radar and have a background in cellular/microwave networks.

Fellow Amateurs, the FRC is an organization run amuck.  Incompetent directors are managing it, flouting the bylaws, violating Florida Law, and ignoring member needs.  I am asking for your proxy for the upcoming FRC meeting.

It has failed in its ability to coordinate operations of amateur radio repeaters in the following ways:

• Publication of the FRC database on a public website
  • This database dump in MySQL format and the associated webpages show without a doubt the level of incompetency in the programming behind the database.  This is nothing but gross negligence on the part of Director Rodakis and Director Lavender.   
  • Per the coordination policy, locations are to be kept secret, however a Reddit user was kind enough to post a Google earth KML showing the coordinated location of every repeater in the state.
  •  All your personal data, phone, email, home address, repeater site address and Repeater Site GPS coordinates are published.
    
    
• Length of the coordination process is unacceptable!
  • As of this writing coordination applications post 1/25/2016 have not been processed.  It’s October!
  • If the coordinator cannot process applications in a reasonable time, he needs to step down.
  • Renewals have not been processed post 5/7/2016!   As most coordinations expire on 9/30/2016, this means no members may vote under the bylaws!  This applies to the board as well.
    

• Violation of the coordination policy by the directors
• Willful violation of the bylaws by the directors
• Willful violations of FS 617 regarding members request for information
  • Acknowledged receipt of this by President Kassis
• Publicly stating the policy of the FRC is “is unable to search for available frequencies”, when this is the FCC definition of a frequency coordinator. 
• When they do suggest frequencies there active repeaters on them, some even coordinated well under the radius.
• Inventing new coordination polices on the fly without approval of the board

The FRC must be reformed if it wishes to keep its legitimacy.  Frequency coordination is voluntary in amateur radio, and there is little reason for amateur radio operators in Florida to seek coordination from the FRC under this current administration.

My goal is to transform this organization into a healthy helping hand for repeater operators and other amateur spectrum users.  No one should be answered with contempt for months after putting an application in for coordination only to be told “fill it out again, we can’t edit it”.  This should not be an organization which exists as a good-ol’-boy system breading contempt; rather one which operates in the open, in accordance with its bylaws, and accountable to its members.

The FRC should ask how to say “Yes” rather than saying “No” in working with their members and other amateurs.

My plan to get us on the right track is:

• Remove the current directors for gross incompetency and exposing the organization to liability:
  • Ray Kassis, N4LEM
  • Dana Rodakis, K4LK
  • (Glenn) Mike Fletcher, NI4M
  • Chuck Lavender, W4CLL
• Demand new elections for existing directors in compliance with the bylaws.
• Establish a bylaw committee to rewrite the bylaws and change the organization structure to better serve all amateurs in Florida.
• Establish a development process for new policies from the membership
• Encourage input from the membership based on sound technical policies
• De-centralize coordination by having a web enabled database be accessible to the public showing all history of an application through coordination.
• No one person should be the gatekeeper of the database. 
• Make all records of the FRC open to the public, as any non-profit serving the public interest must be.

I will make a motion to accomplish this at the next meeting at the Melbourne Hamfest meeting.   To make this happen, I am asking for your proxy, if you’re a member of the FRC.   You will need to print out this form and sign it, then send a scan or legible picture of it to me via email or text message. If you can attend the meeting, please do so.

It’s $10 to become a member on the FRC website and it buys the right to have a say in the future of amateur radio in Florida.   

http://florida-repeaters.org/donate.htm

I fully expect to be shouted down by the board, but as members we cannot be ignored.  I wish to resolve this via the membership, but if ignored I do intend to comply the board, by any legal means, to follow the bylaws and FS 617.

I need your proxy by the Friday, October 7, 2016. 

73’s and see you at Melbourne,

Bryan Fields, W9CR

P.S. Please feel free to discuss this on list.  If you wish to not be a part of this discussion you can remove yourself using the link at the bottom.  I'm happy to oblige your wishes via direct email as well if you have any questions.