Static Over Ham’s Battle With FCC Crackles Loud and Clear

For 11 glorious days America’s most notorious ham was in hog heaven.

Amateur radio hobbyist Richard A. Burton--the only person to ever go to jail for talking on ham frequencies without a license--was back on the airwaves after a 15-year banishment by the Federal Communications Commission.

“I’m legal,” Burton shouted into his transmitter microphone as ham radio operators across Los Angeles listened in amazement. “ . . . KF6GKS is clear.”

Not quite.

Burton barely had time to tack his new license to the wall of his Harbor City apartment this fall before red-faced FCC officials in Gettysburg, Pa. revoked it. His new call sign had been issued by mistake, they said. He would have to unplug his radio immediately.

As suddenly as ham radio station KF6GKS was on the air, it was off.

And now the dispute is crackling across local amateur radio frequencies as hobbyists debate whether the FCC will ever reissue a license to Burton--and whether Burton can keep his hands off his microphone until the agency does.

Few expect either to happen.

Talking on ham radio “is an addictive hobby,” acknowledged Burton. “It’s my connection with the outside world. It’s my form of social interaction.”

But it’s an obsession that has made Burton a near-mythic figure among hams. Not only is he the only amateur operator to be sentenced to federal prison for talking on the radio, he’s been locked up twice for the same offense.

In 1992, Burton even went so far as to suggest that Ronald Reagan may have been behind his original run-in with the FCC after one of his broadcasts, according to some, got piped into the loudspeaker system at the Bel-Air church where the president-elect was attending Sunday services in 1979. Reagan at the time denied recollection of any involvement.

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The FCC and Burton, a disabled 53-year-old electronics technician, have been at odds since 1981, when officials yanked his first ham radio license after he was caught cursing on the air.

Burton kept talking, however. And although the obscenity issue was eventually resolved in his favor, he was convicted in federal court in 1982 of transmitting without a license. He was sentenced to 6 1/2 months in federal prison.

Unlike citizens band radio users, who don’t need a license, amateur-band radio hobbyists are allowed to use high-powered transmitters if they pass a written test. They are authorized to use even longer-range equipment if they pass additional exams and Morse Code tests.

When his probation ended in 1989, he immediately took the test for a new license. But before the FCC acted on the application, government investigators caught Burton illegally broadcasting once more. Pleading in court for “forgiveness and mercy,” Burton escaped a return to prison--but was fined $2,000 and put on another year’s probation.

When that probation was up, Burton applied once more for a license. But again, he was caught on the air. In 1993--in an action that again made national headlines--Burton was sentenced to another seven months in prison.

In September, he again took the test. And to his surprise, he was issued call sign KF6GKS.

“I was flabbergasted. I was back in the ham community. I was back with my friends,” said Burton.

FCC officials say Burton wasn’t the only one flabbergasted. Other Los Angeles hams who were jolted to hear Burton back on the air called the FCC with inquiries and complaints. That prompted the agency to set aside the license in October.

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“Our policy is we would not license a convicted felon who lacked moral turpitude and who had been convicted in relation to a communications-issue crime,” said Howard Davenport, an FCC Enforcement Division chief in Washington.

Davenport said Burton’s use of a different mailing address and omission of his middle initial on his most recent license application prompted officials to mistakenly issue the call letters. And that reflects upon Burton’s integrity, he indicated.

The FCC has refused to negotiate over the revocation. Burton says his radio transmitter has been put away.

Los Angeles-area radio amateurs, meantime, remain up in the air over whether the FCC has gone too far--or not far enough. And some contend that Burton has returned to his old habit of broadcasting without a license.

“You don’t have to pass a character test to get an amateur license. You have to pass a written test,” said Jim Champion, a retired transportation supervisor from Torrance who supports Burton.

But opponent Frank Rechard has predicted on the air that Burton will end up in prison again. “He keeps talking without a license. . . . He continually makes a mockery out of the FCC. Everybody’s watching this one,” said Rechard, a vocational school director from Marina del Rey.

Burton acknowledged that not talking will be tough. “All my friends are on the radio,” he said. “Can I stay off the air? I don’t know.”

To find out, stay tuned. The FCC is.