The following text is excerpted from an article (at page 54) in the April 1999 issue of QST describing the works and philosophy of Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, the FCC's "Chief Enforcer."

Restructuring and Enforcement

Hollingsworth favors some sort of Amateur Radio "restructuring" and he doesn’t believe a "streamlined" approach to licensing necessarily will affect on-the-air behavior one way or the other. "We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep new blood coming into the hobby." (emphasis added) he says, pointing to "increased competition for the attention of the younger generation. He disagrees with those who suggest that altering or reducing the present requirements to obtain an Amateur Radio license will make life more difficult for him in the enforcement end.

"It sounds good if you say it fast." he quips, adding that problems related to lowered entrance standards "are just nil." The opposite isn’t true either; higher standards don’t necessarily make more compliant operators, he says ruefully. "My experience is that higher class ops are the problem ops." (emphasis added)

More rigorous testing? "I have a gut feeling that it won’t matter in the long run," he says of restructuring proposals to ramp up the level of knowledge required by incoming amateurs. "Most of our problems aren’t technical."

These comments clearly seem to indicate that Mr. Hollingsworth doesn't lend much credence to the idea that simplifying the amateur licensing structure and eliminating unnecessary barriers to participation will result in the "doom and decay" which many pro-coders all too frequently assert as "the reason we need to maintain the status quo."

Mr. Hollingsworth also obviously recognizes the need for "new blood" in the ARS.

He's also a tremendous asset to the amateur community and has gotten off to a darned good start at dealing with cleaning up some of the trash that's infested our bands far too much in recent years.

Keep up the good work, Mr. Hollingsworth!!!

(The remainder of the QST article on Mr. Hollingsworth and the FCC's enforcement actions was also quite interesting and well worth the time to read.)