Is anyone in the contesting.com community aware of the FCC recently
"un-granting" the recent vanity callsign applications that were slowed
up by anthrax scares at the FCC? Recently, in an effort to begin an
Amateur Radio Club at Wake Forest University, where I'm a student, we
applied for and received a sequential callsign, KG4PQX, as our club
callsign. Upon receipt of this callsign, we immediately applied for a
more desirable vanity callsign for contesting, which is one of my
particular interests. We chose WF4DD (Wake Forest 4 Demon Deacons) and
submitted the application electronically on 10/23/2001. Of course, this
fell about a week after the FCC stopped processing applications for
vanity callsigns, so we were stuck with a sequential callsign for ARRL
Sweepstakes in November and we were afraid we were going to be using it
again for School Club Roundup, which is going on this week.
Fortunately, it was finally granted on the weekend of NA Sprint SSB 2002
(2/2). I checked the callsign several places, like VanityHQ.com,
QRZ.com, Buck.com, and the FCC online database just to make sure we were
legal. Imagine my surprise then, when I got an e-mail from a nice lady
at an elementary school in Louisiana that I had worked this afternoon as
WF4DD saying that she couldn't find the callsign anywhere in any
databases, and could I send her the QSL information. I sent it to her,
but I also wanted to verify that we were still listed. I checked
QRZ.com, Buck.com, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock server, and
WM7D, and didn't find it anywhere. Checking VanityHQ.com, I found a
brief note saying: "02/04/02 - Most of the 10/23 and 10/24 applications
that were granted have now been un-granted. Something's up for sure."
My question is, have any others in the contesting community recently
applied for a vanity callsign? Was it granted? If it was recently
granted, perhaps in the last 21 days, is it still listed in any online
databases? If you fit these criteria, you should probably check again
and make sure the FCC hasn't un-granted you. Also, why has this
happened? I'm copying this e-mail to some staffers at ARRL Headquarters
and directing these question at them. I've seen nothing about this on
any website, and our trustee has received no notification that our
license has been revoked. If the FCC can do this, which I'm not so sure
of, they should at least notify trustees and licensees of it beforehand,
regardless of whether the licenses have been printed or just granted in
the database. To use a brief analogy, suppose when I pass my driving
test at 16 years old and have my driver's license granted. Do I have to
keep looking at the bureau every day to make sure that I still have a
driver's license, or am I safe to assume that once it's granted, that
it's valid until it expires? Apparently, when dealing with the FCC, I'm
supposed to keep looking every day to make sure that I'm still
licensed. I'm worried by the precedent set by revoking granted
licenses. I just hope that this is explained by someone somewhere. If
you find that you're in the same boat with a recent vanity application,
feel free to e-mail me or the list or both, and we can see if we can
work together to get this problem solved.
Best 73,
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Chris Plumblee
(336) 758-1547
mailto:plumcg0@wfu.edu
mailto:kg4czu@tarriverarc.com
mailto:plumblee@horrormovies.com
President: Wake Forest Univ. Amateur Radio Club
ARS: KG4CZU
AIM: ChrisPlumblee
ICQ: 116884667
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