FFC Rules to Elminate Vanity Call Sign Fee and GMRS License Fee

When I first read this I got the impression that they are finally giving us a "Thank You" for all the things Amateur Radio does that go unnoticed for the population in general. Earthquakes, tornadoes and disasters in general, Amateur Radio is there to lend a helping hand. Rather than dissect it, just accept it, knowing that it's one for the radio fraternity! BOB N2MDA

 

Not taking sides on this, but I don't think a reduction in costs always saves the supplier any money. There may be so many fixed costs in place that none are really eliminated. People still get paid.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

 

Typical government work. It takes them 53 pages to say they are eliminating fees.

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Rele...CC-15-59A1.pdf

Jimmy, N5WDH

 

I agree. I think the term was borrowed from the "vanity" number plates for cars, a term originally invented by popular media.

I find it mildly irritating, just as I find the term "elmer". Elmer who? Elmer Fudd? We have a perfectly good English word "mentor", which has a far more dignified and educated ring to it, while "elmer" always sounded kind of dumb to me.

But in a large segment of to-day's ham community, things "educated" or "dignified" are objects of scorn.

 

Where did you find that information? Can you provide links or sources?

Maybe congress has changed the law, but as I recall, the FCC is and always has been funded by annual appropriations from congress. Remember the licence fees the FCC briefly imposed back in the 1960s, both on amateur radio and CB? Then they discontinued them because the fee money went directly to the general fund of the US treasury while the FCC continued to be funded by congressional appropriations. In effect those licence fees were nothing more than a federal tax on radio licensing, and the FCC decided they had more important duties than to remain a tax collector for Uncle Sam.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <wunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <woNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <wontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <wontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]-->I agree that, in order to cover actual costs, the fee should be much higher than it is for the initial call sign application. But once the special call is issued, there is no justification to keep on imposing an additional fee at each renewal. Once the call sign change is entered into the data base, it costs no more to renew the licence under the “vanity” call than it would under the original sequential call, so there is no compelling reason to keep on collecting an additional fee at every renewal. Unless the law has been changed so that the FCC actually gets the fee money, the only benefit the commission gets from the vanity fee is that it might discourage a few people from applying, thus saving the FCC the trouble and expense of processing the application.

How could it not cost the FCC more to cancel a special call sign at renewal time and re-issue a sequential call, than to merely keep on renewing the ticket with the custom-issued "vanity" callsign?

 

It's part of being a part of a society/nation. I know this SO goes against the egocentric grain of the average American, but a society is a sort of team where some weaker members are supported by the stronger ones. All these avowed xtians should check their holy book LOL

 

KQ0J: I certainly concur with you sir! Anyone wanting these extra services should be willing to pay for them,certainly not at the expense of everone
else.Like anything else in life,if one desires something badly enough,they should be willing to pay for it provided of course it's not an outlandish
expense. Thank you es 73, Respectfully, Greg-W2MYA

 

Why not? We can be proud of getting one and it's a way to recognize each other. Also, I've had people occasionally ask about it, which gives me a chance to talk a little about the hobby. And it may be useful if someone is involved in emergency work.

 

Going back to the original post [if I understood correctly], that it costs more to process the fees than to stop collecting them altogether, you have to hand it to the government for being inefficient, even when it comes to extracting money from their constituency. As for your disparaging remark about Christians, perhaps you should check the Bible yourself, Sir. It talks about charity up and down, but nowhere does it endorse charity by compulsion. There now, I hope I've gone against the egocentric grain of the average liberal.

 

I assume you mean any(free market) book by Adam Smith

 

Another Past Flash

I rebuked the ' RENEWAL FEE ' many , many times on the ZED .....

After I put forth my DISTAIN , quite a few hams called me CHEAP ......

This parroting is almost verbatim to my statements..... They were true THEN and
are true NOW .....

HECK, once you signed up for a Vanity call , the only way out was to take
a new ' sequential ' call ..... I called it one of the FCC ' cash cows '. ....


JB

 

I looked up the budget request the FCC submitted to Congress:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-325872A1.pdf

If you look at page 7, it gives the total appropriations request for the year at around $375 million. Then it goes on to say that they anticipate that same amount in fees collected so the total resultant allocation request is $0. I was kinda surprised myself with the amount of hell the republicans have been raising over the Title II reclassification of ISPs and cutting their budget. You'd think the FCC was entirely tax payer funded. It may have been in the past, but as of FY 2015, it's not.

As for the rest of your question. I don't know. I tried for an hour last night trying to find some document that broke down the FCC's expenses in a line item format beyond the department requests and I couldn't find anything. I couldn't even find a break down of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau's budget that oversees amateur radio. I suppose that would require a records request and a CPA to read it. Also, I wasn't around in 1960 to know about the brief flirtation with licensing fees, but the reasoning they quit you provided makes sense.

 

I agree with that as in the UK, ham licences are free for the same reason. If something is free it is not worth much and also one cannot hold the regulator to task if one does not pay them anything. I am in favour of paying for my ham licence.

73 de Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

 

Is lifetime calls far behind with no renewal?

 

That is what we have in effect in the UK already. We just have to validate out details online once every 5 years*. Licensees who have so far failed to do this have not had their licences revoked

73 de Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

*I do it every time I visit the regulator's site, several times a year.