The AM Forum

I applied online for a change to a vanity call about three weeks ago.

How long does it take to process these?

The FCC online system says the applicaiton is still pending.

How do they notify you? Do they send an email, or do you just wait for the license to come via snail mail?

Dave

When you notice some old geezer is ticked off your call is better than his.

WB6IYH is cancelled.

KE6DF was issued a few minutes ago.

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=3367672

They don't notify you by email....
They just mail the license.
But, you're good to go with your new calll right now.

Congrats Dave but now you have to reestablish your online and print identity ;D

Thanks.

The first thing I did was reserve my call as an Internet domain name.

Now I have to change my ID here on this site, or else just re-register with the new call.

dave

Yea but..................

I had thought about a Vanity call, but after looking for one I thought I would like, those were allready taken. As ugly as my call was (KB3AHE) I hated it since I got it as a novice. but, after all these years everyone knows it, so why bother to change it.

And.......................If you are the worlds worst procrastinator like me and wait till the last minute (literally the last time) to renew, you can do it instantly on line. If you have a vanity call, they wont re-up it untill your check clears the bank. (they may take plastic by now??) Not to mention that if you renew your "issued" call it is no charge.

"Never say never" but as of now I have no plans to change mine. Just too much to do for little or no gain.

Just my $.02 worth


Just a subnote: Now that I have a box of Timmy permanently residing in my radio room
                      I may do something with his call when it expires. (If I'm still around)
                      I think he just renewed it before he died.

Slab things are a bit different now.  You can apply for a vanity call only one time per day and everyone has the same chance that applied that day.  They accept payment by CC over their website.  It is seamless to move from the application to the payment page that gives you the option of mailing payment or on line.

If you do the online payment it is processed right then and you get a receipt.  If you choose one that is not in the mill then there is a good chance you will get it.  1X2 and 2X1 are the big draws.

Wow! things sure have changed since I looked into it 10 years ago! ! !

IIRC, the fee used to be $75, but I think it is considerably less now

I know of 2 people who paid for 1X2 vanity calls and were able only to get a couple of really bad ones. After much razzing on the air, they then paid to get their old calls back! !  ;)  ;D And they are regulars on here!!  ;D  ;D  

This is the site I used to select my call:

http://www.vanityhq.com/

I chose one (actually, four) from the list of immediatly available calls.

Got my first choice.

I have an Advanced so I'm not eligible for a 2x1 or 1x2 anyway.

Plus I wanted the last two letters to be my initials and the first two to be easy to say and send in CW.

The fee was about $14 and they renewed my license all the way to 2022.

Dave

I remember several years ago talking to my XYL about vanity calls and dropping the "A" from my prefix since that call was now available. As she so eloquently put it, "why would you want some dead guy's old call letters?" Your call is unique to you as the first time owner. After about 10 seconds of thought, I dropped the vanity call idea from my mind.

About 10 years ago, when the vanity callsign thing just came out, I changed my call from N3BQW to K3YA.  After all these years I'm still not sure if it was a good decision. 

Send me a PM and I'll take care of changing your call here.

My call is the world's worse call.  NO ONE EVER gets it right the first time.  It's almost laughable some of the attempts that some folk make after hearing me drop my call in.  I take preverse pleasure in some of the responses.  

Change it?  Nope.  It's mine - no one else has ever had it.  Besides "Violet Toilet Paper" has a nice ring to it   ;D

Al

Put some pretty flowers on it and call it "Vanity Toilet Paper" Al.  Since I was first licensed I have held 4 FCC issued calls that were changed by the FCC to something that was atrocious.  I applied for a vanity call for the exact reason you state, no one ever got them right.  Now I don't have trouble.

My old call, WA2HMH, was absolutely atrocious on CW. My current call is actually NOT a vanity call. I applied for it in 1977, when the FCC relaxed the experience requirement for 1 x 2 calls. Who was the original K2PG, if there was one?

Yes, the suffix is my initials...or you can remember it as "K2 Passing Gas"!

There was a time when a K or W 1x2 was highly sought after and prized. it carried prestige -- an old timer with an Extra class license, or a very old timer who had given proof of having been licensed before 1912 (?)  (maybe it was 1924, can't recall exactly now.)

Sorry to be bitter about this but a guy came by my office last year with a W9 1x2 call and he didn't even know CW and that just frosted my rear end.   >:(   Some will take that personally-well don't, it is not meant to demean anyone, it is simply that something has changed and I am not adjusting to it very well. 

What about me--yeah I didn't wait 20 years either; i'm part of that group from back in the late 1970s who were led to believe that if we didn't put in for a 2 letter call right then and there we'd never get another chance so I did it but I was not happy about it.

I've never dealt with the vanity system and I'm not about to fool with it now if I don't have to.  K5UJ is a godawful call on phone but it is a little catchy on CW.     My favorite phone call is WB3Z.   I don't know who has that call sign, but say it a few times and you will know what I mean.  Of course it stinks for anything but ragchewing (that would be FB with me). 

ex-WB5KUJ

Having been assigned Kilo Delta 7 Quebec Delta Uniform and knowing that I was being passed over by DX due to other stations not understanding my call or perhaps they were already answering another ham before I got that mouthfull out. I applied for and received my initials. My contacts went up the day I received my call.

73

Eric

I got this one back in 1919, just after the Great War...  ;)


Like many of the two letter K calls, it was a first issue.   Didn't have to pay for it, ever.  As the story goes, back in 1978 there was a fat list of 2-letter calls available. Anything your heart desired. On a sheet of paper I circled fifteen choices, all double letters, like K1BB, K1CC, K1DD, K1EE, etc. By the time it got to the FCC, many were already snatched.  My thirteenth choice and least desired choice came up as K1JJ.   I could have been a contender and grabbed something cool like K1KW, K1AM, etc.  But noooo. Wasn't thinking.   There were many choices at that time.... sigh.

But all in all, I am very happy to have gotten rid of the old six-digit call.  No contest.  Vely happy ever since.  I figger I've saved several months of my life not having to say all those extra letters over the last 35 years.

T

Here's one thing I'll never forget:  I was 19 when I got my 1x2 call sign, a teenager.  I was at the Signal School at Ft. Gordon GA at the time.   I immediately had a badge made, the plastic kind you can pin on and wear at hamfests with my new call sign on it in big letters.   A couple months later I went to the Atlanta hamfest.  Here's this kid with a two letter call.  I got the fish-eye from a lot of OTs there.

I made the change strictly for CW, faster in a pileup and contest than my previous calls.

On phone I usually break in to a Q with just "H" ;D

I've had the same WB3JOK call since 1976 when I got my Novice. Talk about an atrocious CW call, it takes about three minutes to send at 5 wpm  ;D

My original call was WB0POZ, and you guys complaining about poor calls for CW don't hold a candle to that atrocity.  Nobody could figger it out on phone either, so out it went.  Also when I moved to Maryland I wanted a 3 lander call.

Speaking of bad calls I also briefly held S79ZWB for use during my frequent travels to Seychelles back in the early 1990s.  I coulda chosen any call I wanted but I let the Seychelles Post and Telecommunications office choose.... what a mistake.

way back two years ago i got kf5iia. i got the f outa there so i would not sound like a newbie.  ;D

How do you think I felt?? I had one of the first of a new series of calls. EVERYONE knew you were a newbie. ::)  ::)

Everyone used to call me "the KB3 GUY"   :o  ;D  ;D

With my call now being over 20 years old, and they haven't run out of those damned KB3 calls yet! ! ! ! ! ! !  >:(  >:(  ::)

The really sad part of it is that it shows how few NEW hams have been lisenced in the 3rd call district in the last 20 years  :o

I decided to get my first vanity call 29 years after first getting my license.

I would have kept the APEman call but too many people were asking for fills.

Glad I was able to get a REAL Extra call instead of a goofball Extra call.

What is a "real extra call"? ? ? ?

KB3AHE is a real extra call................

What makes any one more or less extra than another? ? ? ? ?

No inclination to change here...... unless I were to move!

Witch Doctor 8 Bud in Lorain

You know them when you see them Slab : )

I was first  licensed in '81 with KA1IHQ, a real bear for CW as a novice. Upgraded to Tech and took N1EBA for a number of years. CW wise N1EBA was pretty good. Voice, it sucked. Constant repeating of the call drove me nuts. Under marginal conditions I'd get N1EDA,,N1ETA, N1EPA etc. It made for good phonetics. For example, N1 Extra Big Appendage or N1 Extremely Big Antenna.  When vanity came along I opted for the present call.  I always wanted a W call with my initials.  For years I'd watch the Callbook and then one day on a search whim it was available so I applied for the current call and lo and behold. With this call there's very little repeating. I had a family member of the original call sign holder email me to see if I wanted a metal call sign name plate from the original owner.  I said sure but never received it which is OK fine.

I just renewed this call.  I did think about getting a vanity at the time. Some of them actually appealed to me too. But, I won't change my call until I upgrade.  Maybe that'll motivate me? ;)

Did have one other call, YI9HYS for about a year.  It tended to create pile ups on 20m CW  ;D

Calling  N1 Extra Big Appendage -  you got the  K1 Jumbo Joint with W1 Itchy Appendage and W1VD looking for you, caw mawn.

T

WA1DGK, now that would be a cool call

Define goofball?

I did over 40 years in broadcast engineering, and handle CW just fine since that radio merit badge in scouts.

It was time to get another license and beat on my own gear for a change.

Folks that make snap judgements on others' call pedigree deserve all the QRM/N they get.

73DG

Come on, Dave, it just sounds like some kind of an ego thing.  ???  ???

When you are in QSO with someone, does it really mean anything to you whether or not they know you are an extra? Or does it just bolster ones ego? If you are up in the general part of the band what does it really matter? If you are down low in the band they will have to assume you have a higher lisence. If it haunts them enough wondering why you are down band with a Novice call, they can look you up and find out.

I really could care less about my own lisence class showing through and/or whether or not anyone knows what class of lisence I have, as long as I am able to join into a QSO that I find interesting.

The BIG advantage to having an extra call (real, fake, or "goofball") is being able to move to areas of the band that are less conjested.

And, errr, furthermore................ No one on the air has ever questioned or said anything about my novice call being used in the extra part of the band.  ;)  ;)

An idiot with a cool call is still an idiot

Way ta  go, Dave! :o

And they just now got to the Y's. Newest KB3 I can find is KB3YLM, and that was issued April 5. I got this call back in March of 2007, so they aren't making much progress. But KB3OUK gets troublesome on phone at times, everyone seems to get it wrong, even after I repeated it like 20 times in phonetics while calling CQ.

Anyone who has been in amateur radio longer than 5 minutes should know someone can get an Extra with no practical radio knowledge whatsoever. This is no secret or great revelation. It means little except the newer Extra is more likely to be up on later rule changes.

It's what you do after you get the license that counts these days. Anyone unhappy with the current crop of license holder's technical experience had the option to do something about it.

So called old timers who go around bitching on radio sites should spend more time helping younger hams instead of clogging up sites with their venom. Some of these folks IMO don't like what they see in the mirror so they TRY to dump on others to boost their ego. Almost all of these birds would fail a current Extra test without study because of the regulations areas.

Some Extra calls (the ones you can't get without holding the Extra license) just exude wannabe. Has nothing to do with your continued use of your novice call. I did the same thing for 2 decades. Like I said, you know them when you see them.

Agree Dave,
Even though you have a cool call, you are still cool.

BwaHaHa!