Amateur Radio Vanity Processing Falls Victim to Hurricanes
NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 30, 2005--The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) has suspended the processing of Amateur Radio vanity call sign applications. A WTB staff member, speaking to ARRL on background, said the FCC halted vanity processing on or about September 23 after realizing that filing and regulatory deadline extensions for hurricane-affected licensees in certain states could adversely impact the vanity system. The WTB staffer pointed out that the filing extensions announced this month also apply to Amateur Radio's two-year "grace period."
"Because these extensions apply to the grace period, it could affect vanity processing," the WTB staffer told ARRL. "We stopped processing when it came clear that some call signs could be affected." The FCC confirmed that it took the action to avoid such potential problems as re-issuing the call sign of an affected individual in one of the designated states whose license has expired but remains within the two-year grace period for renewal. No decision has been made on when vanity processing will resume.
On September 1, the FCC extended until October 31 all filing and regulatory deadlines falling between August 29 and October 30 for licensees in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana affected by Hurricane Katrina. On September 24, it extended until November 21 all filing and regulatory deadlines falling between September 20 and November 20 for licensees in Louisiana and Texas affected by Hurricane Rita.
The WTB staff member emphasized that the FCC intended the deadline extensions to apply only to licensees who have been directly impacted by the storms. "These are not statewide extensions," the staffer said.
Under Part 97, Amateur Radio licensees have two years from the date of license expiration to renew their tickets without having to retest or risk losing their call signs to a vanity applicant. The staffer confirmed that WTB had disabled the "auto-termination" feature of the Universal Licensing System (ULS) so that it will not automatically cancel licenses that have not been renewed by the end of the grace period.
"We can't assume based on address who might be affected," the staff member explained, "so we're not auto-terminating anything at this point."
In the meantime, the FCC is encouraging radio amateurs to continue filing vanity applications as they normally would. "Everything will be held in queue," the WTB staff member said. It typically takes approximately three weeks for the FCC to process a vanity call sign application. In August, the FCC recently raised the vanity application fee to $21.90.--thanks to Dean Gibson, AE7Q, for alerting ARRL to this situation
Page last modified: 06:09 PM, 30 Sep 2005 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2005, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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