FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION	 PRESS RELEASE
Washington, D . C .
	
(41838)
June 27, 1940
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION EXPANDING FIELD FORCE
TO HANDLE NEW DUTIES UNDER NATIONAL DEFENSE EMERGENCY
Effective policing ofcommunications under the coordinated national
defense program necessitates the Federal Communications Commission moving to
augment its field force with additional fixed monitoring stations as well as
new bases of operation for mobile units . Under this expansion program, which
begins immediately, several hundred inspectors and other experts will be
employed.
The additional force is needed to maintain a comprehensive 24-hour
surveilance of all communication channels, inclusive of broadcast and other
radio transmission . Present radio monitoring facilities will be supplemented
with ten primary long-range direction-finder stations . These stations determine
the bearings of unauthorized or otherwise suspicious communications .
The mobile equipment, which includes direction finding apparatus, traces the
origin. oŁ such transmissions .
In addition to increased monitoring duties, the field division will
be required to watch radiotelegraph and radiotelephone circuits for
superfluoussignals, record same, and. translate foreign language broadcast material .
It must also make certain of the citizenship of several hundred thousand
persons new charged with the responsibility of communications, as well as of
their immediate families . This figure covers about 100,000 licensed radio
operators, including amateurs ; a like number of cable and wire operators, and
other employees such as those of broadcast and other radio stations. It is
necessary to know more about the private communications employees who daily
handle official dispatches and other Government messages .
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Another Emergency task will be to guard against the possible misuse
of electrical apparatus, including diathermy devices (now employed in many
thousand offices of physicians), as transmitters in a manner which might
jeopardize the nation's security . Still another undertaking will be to keep
tab on possible use of transmitters which have been manufactured but not sold
or licensed for authorized communication purposes.
The Commission now operates seven monitoring stations, in various
parts of the country, which are largely devoted to making routine measurements
of frequencies and determining the quality of emissions, as well as spotting
interference . In. the course of such work, they observe unlicensed operation
incidentally . However, these monitoring stations as now manned and equipped
could not cope with the additional work contemplated .
Congress recently authorized a new monitoring station for Massachusetts,
but this is to relocate and improve the existing one . The new bases
for mobile operation are being established at strategic points throughout
the United States and its possessions .
Routine functions of the field division, which now numbers less than
200 persons, embrace inspection of all classes of stations licensed by the
Commission, and the issuance of licenses ; investigation of complaints of
interference and illegal operation ; conducting field strength surveys and
analyzing signal characteristics ; inspecting ship and other marine radio
stations, and general regulatory supervision .
During the last fiscal year the Commission investigated more than
one thousand complaints oŁ unlicensed operation, and the number of cases
pressing for investigation is growing under the present situation . Experience
gained in past investigation of unlicensed stations, particularly in the use
of the ultra high frequencies, has demonstrated the advantage of an inter-radio
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communication system for the purpose of synchronizing operations and exchanging
intelligence . The prospective new primary monitoring stations and mobile
units will be equipped with transmitters and receivers so as to be able to
more quickly run down unlawful operation .
Since the Commission is under Civil Service, the additional personnel
will come from those rolls .-FCC-