Ham Operator Who Makes Waves on Airwaves Faces New FCC Charges

Legend has it that Richard A. Burton’s problems started at church with Ronald Reagan.

By one account, the amateur radio operator made an obscenity-laced shortwave broadcast that was somehow transmitted over the loudspeaker system at the Bel-Air church where the president-elect was attending Sunday services in 1979.

By another, Reagan heard a snippet of Burton’s raunchy, on-the-air comments when a Hollywood film producer cornered him after the service and played a cassette tape for him.

Both versions suggest that Reagan got an awful earful that day--enough to prompt 12 years of wrangling between the Federal Communications Commission and Burton. The dispute has landed the ham operator in federal prison once and now threatens to send him there again.

Burton was ordered into U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday morning to answer new charges that he violated FCC regulations by broadcasting without a license. The allegations are certain to further complicate Burton’s effort to win his ham license back and, at worst, could land him once more in prison.

“Every time I go for a license, they seem to come out and indict me,” Burton said late Monday.

A spokeswoman for Reagan said the former President cannot recall the church incident that supposedly sparked Burton’s dilemma. Neither can the FCC.

But, true or not, the story involving the former President shows how the Harbor City man has become a near-mythic figure among hams since he became the only hobbyist ever to be stripped of his radio license and sent to prison for talking illegally on the air.

To this day, the dispute resonates among Southern California’s 50,000 amateur operators like an overheated speaker in a ham receiver.

“I’ve never seen the ham community as divided on anything as it is on this,” said John Brunk, a Norwalk medical technician and amateur operator whose friends have taken sides in the matter, often arguing over Burton’s case on the air.

Foes of Burton have flooded the local FCC office with phone calls and letters demanding that he never be relicensed. They claim he continues to illegally broadcast the same profanities and epithets that first got him in trouble.

Supporters of Burton have contributed money to help him hire a lawyer to win his license back. They contend that he has harmed no one and is a victim of a government vendetta.

Ham Anthony Cardenas, a Carson computer consultant campaigning to keep Burton off the air, says that “he’s served his time, but he’s not a changed man.”

Ted Krempa, a Mission Viejo insurance man who has donated $100 to Burton’s defense, counters: “This is about a hobby, that’s what’s kind of silly. . . . what harm can a person possibly do on ham radio?”

So far, the FCC has steadfastly refused to issue a new operating permit to Burton, 48, an electronics engineer who is disabled by heart and respiratory problems. A licensing hearing scheduled for last week was abruptly canceled when an administrative law judge ruled that Burton’s past convictions--coupled with a missed deadline for his paperwork--nullified his application.

The new indictment filed Monday alleges that Burton made illegal transmissions on May 5, May 20 and July 6. Burton pleaded innocent Monday. He was ordered to return for trial Nov. 10.

Burton said Monday that he plans to appeal the license ruling to an FCC review board and the agency’s commissioners if necessary. If that fails, he has vowed to sue the government to get his license back.

He says that what started as a hobby has become a compulsion that has affected him mentally and physically. Stress from the FCC dispute caused his weight to balloon to 480 pounds last year, he said.

“I just want to talk to my friends on the radio,” he said. “It’s been a hard 12 years. Every day I’ve dreamed of getting my license back. Ham radio is my life; my fellow radio amateurs are my family. Radio is my contact with the outside world.

“I’ve served my time, paid my fine, served my probationary period. I’ve undergone the court-ordered therapy that was required. I’m rehabilitated, in terms of talking dirty on the radio. I won’t talk dirty--unless I’m provoked.”

But Burton acknowledges that it was his mouth that got him in trouble in the beginning. He admits he sometimes used “barroom language” and interrupted other amateurs’ conversations in the late 1970s.

“That built the fire,” Burton said. “It’s been downhill from there for me. Of course, I didn’t help matters.”

When the FCC ordered him in 1980 to watch his language, Burton brushed the warning aside. After that, when the FCC suspended his ham license, Burton kept talking.

He was convicted in federal court in 1982 for transmitting without a license and broadcasting obscenities--although the obscenity conviction was overturned two years later.

In 1984, Burton was sentenced by federal Judge Manuel L. Real to four years in prison on the license charge. All but six months of the sentence were suspended and he was placed on five years probation.

“I spent six months, 20 days and eight hours in Lompoc,” Burton said. “Other prisoners couldn’t believe it when they asked what I was in for and I told them, ‘For talking on the radio.’ ”

Burton immediately applied for a new ham license when his probation ended in 1990. But before the government acted on the request, FCC investigators again caught him talking on the radio without a license. Burton avoided a return to prison by pleading to federal Judge Robert M. Takasugi for “forgiveness and mercy.”

“I don’t expect the FCC or the amateur radio community to welcome me back with open arms. But I hope that some day they can show some compassion to one who has gone astray,” he wrote Takasugi.

Burton was fined $2,000 and placed on another year of probation. When that period ended last fall, he applied again for a new license.

But his detractors say he again picked up a microphone earlier this year without waiting for the FCC to issue him a new permit.

Amateur operator Mel Goldstein, a hydraulics company manager from Thousand Oaks, said Burton recently interfered with Ventura County hams’ transmissions and uttered ethnic slurs over the airwaves--an allegation Burton denies.

“That guy doesn’t deserve to be licensed,” Goldstein said.

Ed Walker, co-founder of the Baldwin Hills Amateur Radio Club, said that “it’s ridiculous to go to jail for talking on the radio. But he asked for it. Richard hasn’t reformed.”

For his part, Burton says he is not guilty. He said a friend now has possession of his radio equipment. “It’s like candy--I want it locked up and out of my reach,” he said.

Burton’s supporters say he has been punished enough.

Ham Mike Foster, a Mission Viejo electronics technician, said many of Burton’s critics have never heard him on the air. “They’ve heard of him. Automatically he’s a terrible guy because he went to prison,” Foster said.

Hal Hileman, a Palm Springs engineer, agrees with other Burton backers who say that since the controversial ham has served his time, he should be considered rehabilitated.

He was a boyhood friend of Burton in Eagle Rock when they were Cub Scouts. Both became interested in radio by building an old-fashioned crystal set together.

“I’m a traditional kind of ham, conservative on the radio,” Hileman said. “But I can’t see any justification for holding back his license. It’s clear to me there’s a lot more going on between him and the FCC than just breaking the law.”

Ralph Haller, current chief of the commission’s Private Radio Bureau, said the Burton case was simply triggered by FCC investigators who picked up on complaints.

“We’re always facing a very delicate balance between freedom of speech and yet allowing something on frequencies that can be heard internationally,” Haller said from Washington before Monday’s indictments were announced.