Subject: Care To Try Again, Steve?
From: PAMNO (N2EY)
Date: 11/24/2004 7:32 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Steve
Robeson K4YZ) writes:

Hardly "gobbling", Jim. Either them OR us!

According to your own statistics, a large percentage of the most desirable
KH2
and KH0 calls are held by noresident aliens.

No...YOU said the "most desireable" calls were being gobbled up! That's
pretty subjective. Personally, I don't care for the 2 x 1 formatted calls. If
it were me, and I were out there, I'd get a 2 x 2 formatted call in either the
AH or KH block.

You've NOT answered my question Jim.

Were the "tests" conducted illegally or inappropriately?

I don't know. I've never been to one of those VE sessions. I'm not going to
make any claims one way or the other.

However, suppose for a moment that there *were* some rules broken by a VE
team
made up of noncitizens who have never been to US territory. How could FCC do
any enforcement actions against them other than revoking their US licenses?

Fair enough. However, after 20+ years of VE testing, I have yet to hear
of one of those overseas tests as being determined to be a "license for sale"
situation rather than an above-board test session.

Yet we HAVE had more than a small number of VE test session right here in
the US that WERE just that (license for sale). I am sure there have been cases
of fines, but in most cases, revocation of of licensure for both "licensee" and
"examiner" was the only penalty enforced.

Big snippage...Not much to argue with...

I'm not the one arguing that there's a probelm, Jim. (Note: IRT Jim;s
concerens vis-a-vis foreign nationals holding US licensure) You and Hans can
work that one out!

That's what we're trying to do.

OK...then send a copy of the document to me and I'd be glad to sign on as a
co-sponsor. But right now there's not much to argue with since what's going on
appears to be legal and there's no other legal precedent for the FCC to say
"No, We won't accept license applications from non-resident foreign nationals".

Ya *really* wanna stir things up?

Imagine if FCC came up with a new callsign system, like this:

1) No more vanity calls
2) All CONUS callsigns begin with W
3) All non-CONUS callsigns begin with K
4) All nonresident callsigns begin with N
5) All special event callsigns begin with A
6) All callsigns indicate the geographic location of the licensee's address.
If
you move across a call district boundary, you get a new callsign,
sequentially
issued, no choice.
7) Everybody gets a 2x3 call except Extras, who get the shorter calls,
sequentially issued, until they're used up.
8) If your present call matches the new system, you can keep it. Otherwise
you
get a sequentially issued new call on the next renewal. No choice of the new
call.

Can you imagine the uproar?

Since when has creating an up-roar been un-American...?!?!

Actually, Here's MY idea.

All new callsigns are assigned a 2x3 callsign, regardless of class,
period. All existing calls stay the same unless the licensee requests a change
which they pay for.

The FCC continues to offer the different "Group" callsigns, but if the
licensee wants a call other than what was issued, they pony up the change...No
more "sequential" calls other than the 2x3 they were issued.

If you move across a call district line, you either apply for a call in
that district, or you are obligated to sign "portable", "stroke", "mobile", etc
that call district. There are both enforcement and "good operating practice"
issues therein.

The actual cost of the licensing program would go down since the FCC would
no longer be issuing tons of "sequential" callsigns gratis, and fees collected
would go up since you couldn't get any other format of call without ponying up
the change to do so.

Of course it'll never happen, because the admin paperwork alone would be a
nightmare. Plus the vanity revenue would go away.

The paperwork would go down since they'd no longer be getting 605's at
every change of class of license or address change and the fees would go up
since they were no longer issuing (save for the initial call) gratis licenses.
And the FCC would be getting paid to process what extra paperwork they DID
receive.

73 and Happy Turkey Day

Steve, K4YZ