[BCVHFA] FWD: ARLB027 FCC Issues Report and Order on Vanity and Club Station Call Signs

[Carl Morgan]

SB QST @ ARL $ARLB027
ARLB027 FCC Issues Report and Order on Vanity and Club Station Call
Signs

ZCZC AG27
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 27  ARLB027
 From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  November 11, 2010
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB027
ARLB027 FCC Issues Report and Order on Vanity and Club Station Call
Signs

In November 2009, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making 
(NPRM) -- WT Docket No. 09-209 -- seeking to amend the Commission's 
Amateur Radio Service rules to clarify and codify existing procedures 
governing the vanity call sign system. The NPRM also sought to revise 
certain rules applicable to club  stations. The ARRL submitted its 
comments to the FCC on March 26. On Monday, November 8, 2010, the FCC 
issued a Report and Order (R&O) with its decisions. These new rules 
will take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

In the R&O, the FCC amended and clarified its rules with respect to 
Amateur Service vanity call signs "in order to promote processes that 
are more equitable and administratively efficient."  The FCC has 
amended its vanity call sign rules to clarify the date on which the 
call sign associated with a license that is canceled due to the 
licensee's death becomes available for reassignment and clarifies the 
exceptions to the general rule that a call sign is unavailable to the 
vanity call sign system for two years after the license terminates. 
As for club stations, the FCC has placed limits on who can file 
applications on behalf of a club, how many vanity call signs a club 
can hold and how many clubs can have the same license trustee.

According to the FCC, almost 80,000 licensees have replaced their 
sequentially issued Amateur Radio call signs with a vanity call sign 
since the program began in 1996. When the program began, the 
Commission established what they called "the broad outlines" of the 
vanity call sign system, concluding that call signs generally should 
not be available for reassignment for two years following the death 
of a licensee, or expiration or termination of the license for that 
call sign. In doing so, the Commission made exceptions for former 
holders of the call sign, close relatives of a deceased former holder 
and club stations of which a deceased former holder was a member.

The complete Report and Order (in PDF format) can be found on the FCC 
web site at,
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1108/FCC-10-189A1.pdf
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