Subj : Other Ham Radio News
To   : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Jan 25 2019 05:30 pm

  According to FoxNews on Jan. 25, 2019, there has been an agreement to
end the government shut down (at least for now). However, we may be
right back at square one on Feb. 15, 2019, three weeks from now, with
another "government shutdown".

  Now that the shutdown is over (at least for now), there is a huge amount
of a backlog of data to get into the FCC ULS, from the various VEC's. I
just hope the FCC's computers don't crash with all the influx of exam
session data!!

***

  If you, as an amateur radio operator do NOT know when your ham radio
license is to expire, YOU NEED TO STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING, AND FIND OUT
NOW!! 

  If your license lapsed (was expired more than 2 years from Dec. 22,
2018 until now), you are going to have to "start over"...as you have LOST
your license and callsign...and will have to, AT MINIMUM, take the
Technician Class exam.

  You will get a new callsign about 1 to 2 weeks AFTER the exam session...
unless another government shutdown has taken hold. Then, you will have to
WAIT EVEN LONGER to get back on the air. Plus, if you had a "highly sought
after callsign", it's likely that someone else will have snatched it up
through the Vanity Callsign system, and you will NOT be able to get it
back. In short, you have no one to blame but yourself, for not keeping
track of when your ham radio license expired or lapsed.

***

  Amateur Radio Operators, prospective and current, are asked to be
patient, due to the delay in license processing.

Daryl Stout, WX1DER, UALR Ham Radio Club VE Team Liaison
--- SBBSecho 3.06-Win32
 * Origin: RadioWxNet: The Thunderbolt BBS  tbolt.synchro.net (801:1/2)