SB QST @ ARL $ARLB084
ARLB084 Vanity program on hold

ZCZC AG64
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 84  ARLB084
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  November 19, 1996
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB084
ARLB084 Vanity program on hold

The FCC has confirmed reports that no more Gate 2 vanity call sign
applications will be processed until Commission personnel deal with
complaints from several hams whose vanity applications arrived too
early and were dismissed. An FCC spokesman in Washington said the
affected hams all had used the same express service and had
requested delivery on Saturday, September 21, so they would be in
the queue for the opening day of Gate 2 on September 23. Instead,
all of the applications arrived on Friday, September 20, were
designated as ''untimely filed'' and dismissed by the FCC.

The affected applicants are seeking to have their applications
reinstated. The FCC spokesman said he had ''no idea'' when a
decision would be made in the matter. ''The irony of it is, in many
cases, the call signs they would like have already been assigned,''
he said. The affected applicants were not aware that their
applications had been dismissed until a week or so after the opening
of Gate 2. The FCC spokesman said the issue is under review. At
best, the applications could be included with the day-two
applications; at worst, they could stay dismissed, he said.

Meanwhile, an FCC spokeswoman said personnel at the Gettysburg
office were ''a little more than halfway'' through the stack of up
to 550 day-one vanity applications that needed some kind of special
handling--which the FCC calls WIPS for ''works in process.'' As many
as 550 first-day applications ended up in WIPS, either because the
FCC was unable to match one of the applicant's call sign choices or
because the application contained ''inconsistencies''--some as
simple as a date of birth on an application that was missing or
failed to match one already in the FCC's database.
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