Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC no longer issuing certain 2x3-format vanity call signs

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 18:35:26 -0400

FCC no longer issuing certain 2x3-format vanity call signs

August 4, 2004 -- For the record, the FCC has ceased issuing 2x3-format
Amateur Radio vanity call signs that begin in the prefixes WC, WR, WK
and WT (eg, WR1AAA, WC4ZZZ). The Commission has acknowledged that it
erroneously granted more than 150 WR and WC-format vanity call signs
from 1997 through September 2003, when it began rejecting such call sign
requests.

A little background: In the late 1970s, the FCC announced a new Amateur
Service call sign assignment system. It provided four standard call sign
groups, designated Group A, B, C and D, delineated by license class and
issued sequentially with no backfilling.  The FCC's Bill Cross, W3TN,
recently told the nation's volunteer examiner coordinators (VECs) that
the FCC also had a "Group X." These included WC (RACES), WR (repeater),
WK and WT-prefix call signs, reportedly reserved for special-use
licenses.  The FCC stopped issuing repeater call signs in 1983 and
ceased renewing RACES licenses in 2000. After the current vanity program
began in 1996, several ham clubs sought new and formerly held repeater
and RACES-type call signs.

When the Universal Licensing System came along in August 1999, however,
the FCC encountered some licensing system programming shortcomings,
including the anomalous assignments of WC and WR-prefix 2x3 call signs
as acceptable formats.  When the FCC implemented programming corrections
that halted the issuance of Group X call signs in September 2003, it did
not advise the amateur community. As a result, several amateurs who
filed for 2x3 WC or WR-prefix call signs had their applications
dismissed without any explanation beyond saying that the applicant's
call sign choice was unavailable. That remains the case. The FCC has not
indicated whether it plans to address the WC and WR-prefix 2x3 call
signs it's already issued.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/08/04/5/?nc=1

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