Summertime marks the beginning of a particularly busy time of year for our nation's first responders. Huge wildfires will ravage the West; fierce storms will spawn killer tornadoes across the country's midsection; and the Gulf and Atlantic states are preparing themselves for what forecasters predict may be one of the nastiest hurricane seasons ever.

It shouldn't take another national disaster to remind us how important our first responders are. They should know how much they're appreciated BEFORE the next emergency occurs.

That's why we are challenging all FRC supporters to help us make September 25th National First Responder Appreciation Day by gathering 5,000 signatures over the next three weeks.

By June 1st, the official start of hurricane season, the FRC's goal is to have a total of 10,000 signatures to the on-line petition. To do that we need your help TODAY!

It's an ambitious goal, but with a little effort from a lot of people we can do it! Working together we can give our first responders the national day of appreciation that they deserve! Please TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW!

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY:

Sign the petition to make September 25th National First Responder Appreciation Day.

Tell as many people as you know that if catfish deserve a national day of recognition, then so do the brave men and women who protect our communities!

Spread the word by adding us as your friend on your MySpace or Facebook!

Print out a copy of the petition and ask your friends and neighbors to sign it.

We've already got 5,000 signatures. Now we need your help to get 5,000 more by June 1st. With your help, we can give our first responders the national day of appreciation that they deserve. PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!

I have to give Donny Jackson credit for his latest article about the distressing state of the 800 MHz rebanding process. It's thought-provoking, it's right on target, and most importantly, it calls on all parties to put the public's safety first by acting swiftly to fix the problem.

First some background, courtesy of the RadioReference Wiki. (also, see the FCC website for additional info on interference in the 800MHz band).

When the 800 MHz band was originally created, public safety was assigned a set of frequencies, and incumbent commercial service providers were allowed to operate on the remainder of frequencies in the band. However, unlike in other bands where licensee types were allocated to contiguous blocks of frequencies, in the 800 MHz band, public safety and certain commercial services (primarily Nextel) were interwoven.

The result: low-powered public safety channels located adjacent to higher-powered commercial services experienced significant radio interference. First responder communications became garbled and fuzzy. In some instances they were completely unable to transmit.

When first responders aren't able to effectively and reliably communicate with each other, an already dangerous job is made even more dangerous. In addition, when they can't communicate they can't coordinate their actions, and that puts the lives of the communities they protect at increased risk, too.

To correct the problem, the FCC ordered the "rebanding" of the 800 MHz spectrum. In short, rebanding involves extracting the commercial frequencies interwoven with the public safety frequencies. The goal would be to have a contiguous block of frequencies reserved exclusively for public safety, and a separate, contiguous block of frequencies reserved exclusively for commercial wireless services.

The FCC ordered Nextel to take the lead in, and pay for the cost of, vacating from the 800 MHz band where the Nextel technology was causing the interference. That was three years ago, and as MRT Magazine reports:

Two ADDITIONAL years! There's been so much talk about interoperable communications in recent years, and rightly so, but this remains a critical public safety issue, too. Where has the urgency with correcting interference in the 800MHz band gone?

Wanna get mad? Read the article here.