FCC issues Report and Order on vanity and club station call signs

In November 2009, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) - WT Docket No. 09-209 - seeking to amend the Commission's Amateur Radio Service rules to clarify and codify existing procedures governing the vanity call sign system. The NPRM also sought to revise certain rules applicable to club stations.

The ARRL submitted its comments to the FCC on March 26. On Monday, November 8, 2010, the FCC issued a Report and Order (R&O) with its decisions.

These new rules will take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

In the R&O, the FCC amended and clarified its rules with respect to Amateur Service vanity call signs "in order to promote processes that are more equitable and administratively efficient."

The FCC has amended its vanity call sign rules to clarify the date on which the call sign associated with a license that is canceled due to the licensee's death becomes available for reassignment and clarifies the exceptions to the general rule that a call sign is unavailable to the vanity call sign system for two years after the license terminates.

As for club stations, the FCC has placed limits on who can file applications on behalf of a club, how many vanity call signs a club can hold and how many clubs can have the same license trustee.

According to the FCC, almost 80,000 licensees have replaced their sequentially issued Amateur Radio call signs with a vanity call sign since the program began in 1996. When the program began, the Commission established what they called "the broad outlines" of the vanity call sign system, concluding that call signs generally should not be available for reassignment for two years following the death of a licensee, or expiration or termination of the license for that call sign. In doing so, the Commission made exceptions for former holders of the call sign, close relatives of a deceased former holder and club stations of which a deceased former holder was a member.

The complete Report and Order (in PDF format) can be found on the FCC web site at,
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/
2010/db1108/FCC-10-189A1.pdf

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