Friday, May 26, 2022 — The FCC announced today that they will begin charging a $35 fee for any Amateur Radio license application submitted to them. This includes new licenses applications from the VECs; requests for a new sequential callsign or a request for a vanity callsign.
In the case of vanity callsigns, in the past if someone requested a callsign they weren’t entitled to have, their application would be dismissed and the application could file for a refund of their fee. The new fee — which goes into effect Tuesday, April 19th.
The $35 fee is on top of the $15 examination fee the ARRL VEC charges test takers. This means you’re going to have to be ready to pony up $50 to attempt any upgrade to your existing license. I assume that if your test is unsuccessful, your application stops and the FCC will not request the $35 fee, since there’s really no action they need to take when an applicant fails a VE exam.
It sounds a bit like a Rube Goldberg system they’re going to use to manage the payment, if you ask me.
The applicant will pay the VE team the $15 to test; if successful, the application goes to FCC for processing. At that point, the FCC will send an email link to the applicant with payment instructions. At that point,, the applicant has 10 calendar days to make payment — or, presumably, the FCC will dismiss the application if payment is not received.
The FCC seems hellbent on making it more difficult for potential hams to get a ticket. Now, before you can even test, you have to create an FRN number on the FCC website. You have to have a valid email on your application. Now they implement a two-part fee scheme that means if you don’t pay within 10 calendar days, you’re screwed.
BETTER NOW THAN 20 YEARS AGO I GUESS. I guess I can be relieved that they FCC waited until well into the 21st Century before making the changes,, because it they had done them 20 years ago, it would have cost me plenty.
That’s because I used the FCC’s application system for my own benefit. At the time I applied for my vanity call, if there was more than one application for a vanity call, the FCC computers would pick one application at random. Well, back then, you could submit multiple applications for the same vanity callsign. Doing so meant that instead of having one chance out of however many applications were seeking the vanity call, you have 51 chances (or however many applications you filed) out of the total to snag that callsign.
In my case, I filed 51 applications for KY4Z on the first day it was available. There were other applicants of course, but I had a better than 75 percent chance of getting the callsign — and I got it. And I was able to request a refund for the 50 unsuccessful applications once the selection was made.
Oh brother, did that piss some hams off! At the time, there was a group of self-appointed militant hams (who, by the way, all had the vanity callsigns they wanted) who were spread hatred at those of us who quite legally filed multiple applications in the vanity call sign process. They would bitch, whine and moan at length about the alleged “sin” of multiple applications. It helped me get the call I wanted, that’s all I know. All I did was use the tools that I had available. For a time, I was in their Top 10 of multiple application offenders, a place I held with great pride!
RETURN TO DAYS OF OLD? I’m showing my age, but if you go back 30 plus years, getting your first ham ticket was a much easier process.
The Novice license was the entry level license, and was a great entry point because you were limited to mostly CW on HF bands. So you learned about hamming on the HF bands while building other skills. Hams who exercised their Novice license had a better, more rounded entry into the hobby than with today’s Technician license.
All it took to give a Novice exam was two hams to moderate the give the exam and the morse code test. They signed off that you passed, and it was done! No VE team needed. It was a far cry from today’s $50 non-refufndable licensing.
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK … SK ….. (dit dit) …