[Kenwood] Ham renewal turnaround

[Art Clemons]

> I was at the FCC site about 3 weeks ago and attempted to 1) renew
> my recently expired Tech no-code.  I also, within the same online 
> transaction, tried for new call which appeared to be unused.   Paid
> via credit card - using their online method.  
> 
If your license expired, then within two years of expiration, you have to 

send in a form 605 filled out to 1270 Fairfield, Gettysburg, PA address. 
  You then will be eligible to apply for your new vanity callsign.  The 
website even explains that it only deals with unexpired renewals.  If 
you had applied either by email or by mail before your license expired, 
you would be able to still get on the air and operate unless of course 
you had your renewal denied or otherwise discarded.   In the real world, 
it's possible one of the clerks doing the work will renew you anyway. 
The FCC has been pretty quick about renewals, within one week of 
reception, the update has hit all of the servers so, uh download the PDF 
form 605 including the amateur stuff and mail that in.

Vanity calls have a backlog because of the scare about anthrax, and the 
FCC insisting on treating electronic and mail filings on the same day as 
equal.  They have been cleaning up the backlog, but it's slow work 
because they have to have all of the mail for the same day that the 
electronic filings come in before they'll process any for that day.