COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS OF VECS FROM FCC SEARCH

Based on use of the FCC's own Search engine on their website
on the 13th day of no code test for US radio amateurs, the
following tabulations show the 14 VEC's activity from 24 Feb
to 7 Mar 07:
ALL actions NEW %, New
VEC and classes Licensees to All
---------------------- ---------- ---------- -------
Milwaukee RA Club, Inc 52 9 17.3
Laurel AR Club, Inc 242 24 9.9
Anchorage ARC 37 9 24.3
ARRL/VEC 3,055 614 20.1
W4VEC 110 8 7.3
Greater LA AR Group 13 6 46.2
Sunnyvale VEC ARC Inc 43 0 0
W.Carolina AR Soc/VEC, Inc 209 32 15.3
Golden Empire AR Soc 16 1 6.3
Central America VEC Inc 1 0 0
W5YI-VEC 887 178 20.1
MO-KAN VE Coordinator 22 5 22.7
Sandarc-VEC 46 6 13.0
Jefferson AR Club 0 0 0

Total, All 14 VECs 4,233 892 21.1

Total FCC Actions 7,121 937 13.2

A starting date of 24 Feb rather than 23 Feb was chosen to
allow application processing from the 22nd and before to
be done. That would cause skewed comparisons between coded
and non-coded testing. However, skew still occurs due to
slow mail delivery to the VEC Hqs and their processing for
input to the FCC. For that reason a new time period was
begun on Wednesday, 28 Feb to Wednesday, 7 March to provide
more isolation of code-test period processing:

ALL actions NEW %, New
VEC and classes Licensees to All
---------------------- ---------- ---------- -------
Milwaukee RA Club, Inc 0 0 0
Laurel AR Club, Inc 157 17 10.8
Anchorage ARC 34 9 26.5 *
ARRL/VEC 2,505 434 17.3
W4VEC 37 2 5.4
Greater LA AR Group 0 0 0
Sunnyvale VEC ARC Inc 8 0 0
W.Carolina AR Soc/VEC, Inc 82 19 23.2
Golden Empire AR Soc 16 1 6.3 *
Central America VEC Inc 1 0 0 *
W5YI-VEC 609 154 25.3
MO-KAN VE Coordinator 22 5 22.7 *
Sandarc-VEC 21 3 14.3
Jefferson AR Club 0 0 0 *

Total, All 14 VECs 3,492 892 25.6

Total FCC Actions 4,894 644 13.2

* Unchanged from first tally

A one-week period is still too soon to see much of a trend
or change in activity, primarily due to (usual) monthly
periods of VEC testing sessions; some may skip the Friday,
23 Feb no-code-test start but others may have added a
testing session during or shortly after the 23 Feb date.
Note that the Greater Los Angeles Amateur Radio Club got
nearly 1 out of 2 as NEW during the 4-day interval between
starting dates of each tabulation.

In essence, the tabulations show (for bigger VECs) mostly
license modifications, class upgrades as the major activity.
New licensees are about one-quarter or less of all test
session results; this seems on-par with prior testing.

Some, namely Dee Flint, have claimed that the ARRL/VEC does
"new licensee processing first." There is no real proof of
this since a breakdown of actions resulting from their VE
team testing for 28 Feb to 7 Mar show the following:

Activity (from FCC) Total Percentage of 3,055
--------------------- ----- -------------------
Administrative Update 48 1.6
Duplicate License 11 0.4
Modification 2,028 66.4
Renewal/Modification 81 2.7
Renewal Only 273 8.9
NEW 614 20.1

4 out of 5 test session items are either modifications,
renewals or class upgrade testing. The FCC Application
Search site does not differentiate "modifications" as to
address or name changes versus license class changes
without a much more detailed examination of individuals.

It should be noted that there is NO sign of the ARRL/VEC
having processed the 25 Feb local ARRL VE team (N6ZZK,
KD6PLU, W6LPJ, KF6UXT) paperwork from about 16
individuals at Old Fire House 77 in the 91352 ZIP area
(Sun Valley, CA.) as of the 10th day after that Sunday
afternoon test session. This is the age of computers and
FAXs and direct submittal from VECs to the FCC
electronically. It was 12 days from my First 'Phone
test completion in 1956 to receipt of my license
certificate, all carried by the postal service and no
such "computer processing" as is available now. 51
years later, the "system" has no more streamlining now
despite a supposed "faster response" than before.