VANITY CALL SIGN PROCESSING
In the three weeks since Gate 2 opened on September 23, the FCC’s Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, office, has worked its way about halfway through the stack of 4527 first-day applications. At this point, Commission personnel are only entering application data in preparation to grant applications, a process an FCC spokesman said would take approximately four weeks. No license grants have been made under Gate 2. Since most of the applications have included the maximum 25 call sign choices, keying each one into the computer has been a painstaking process. The FCC said it would ignore illegible choices in the list.
The FCC will not start making any grants for first-day filers until all day-one applications have been entered into the FCC’s computer. Then, applications will be processed randomly by the computer from among those that arrived on September 23, 1996.
About 7% of Gate 2 applicants have been using the FCC’s new on-line electronic filing system, available via the FCC’s Web page at http://gullfoss.fcc.gov/vanity.prod/ vanity.htm. Paper and electronic applications have equal weight in terms of processing, but electronic applications don’t have to be manually transcribed into the FCC’s computer. Electronic payment is not yet available.
If your application cannot be granted for any reason, the FCC will dismiss and return it. But to get your $30 back, you must request a refund in writing. The FCC has not announced opening dates for Gates 3 and 4.
Vanity program applicants are advised to refrain from calling the FCC for the latest information on application processing and, instead, to check the latest vanity program information on the ARRLWeb page at http://www.arrl.org/fcc/vanity.html or to listen to W1AW bulletins. The KI4HN Web page lists vanity assignments at http://www.webbuild.com/~ki4hn/vanity.htm. This address was still working on October 10, but KI4HN reports he’s changing Web servers and the new address will be http://www.mindspring.com/~ki4hn. Another source of the latest FCC grants is the CallBook Server (CBS) Summary at http://www.lantz.com/htbin/cbs_today. CBS lists all transactions that result in call sign changes. (Source: The ARRL Letter - 10/11/1996)
ARRL Election Ballots
Attention ARRL members in the Central, Hudson, New England, Northwestern, Roanoke, Rocky Mountain, and Southwestern Divisions. Ballots have been mailed to all ARRL full members in these divisions who were members as of September 10. If you are eligible to receive a ballot but have not received one by October 26, you may request a replacement from the Secretary, ARRL, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111. Completed ballots must be received by the independent auditor overseeing the balloting no later than noon Friday, November 15.
Candidates are: [...] New England Director, Bill Burden, WB1BRE, and Tom Frenaye, K1KI; New England Vice Director, Don Haney, KA1T, and Hal Offutt, K8HVT; NNNN