XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated, rec.radio.amateur.policy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
From: E. Allen Brown
Date: May 7, 1992, 8:41:22 PM
Subject: Voice of America Amateur Radio Club Gets New Call Sign - K3VOA
___VOA Amateur Radio Club Gets New Call Sign - K3VOA
In an unprecedented move, the Federal Communications Commission
has issued a license modification to the Voice of America Amateur
Radio Club to change its amateur radio call sign from K3EKA to
the more recognizable call sign K3VOA.
For more than ten years the club has made several informal
inquiries in an effort to secure a "VOA-suffix" call sign. In
every case the FCC cited that the request was directly prohibited
by the Rules and Regulations Part 97.17.
During VOA's 50th anniversary in February, the new USIA Director
of the Bureau of Broadcasting (which includes VOA), Chase
Untermeyer, expressed a desire to visit the VOA ARC ham shack.
Club president, Al Brown (WA3FYZ), felt that this would be a
perfect opportunity to ask Mr. Untermeyer to intervene in the
club's behalf and ask the FCC Chairman to grant an exception.
Mr. Untermeyer agreed and asked Al Brown to draft a letter for
him to sign, which was sent to Alfred Sikes, Chairman of the FCC,
in March.
In his reply, Mr. Sikes stated that considering the importance of
the 50th anniversary of the Voice of America and that other
governments around the world have issued VOA-suffix call signs,
"I have asked ... that Rule 97.17(f) be waived and that the VOA
headquarters amateur radio station be issued a "VOA-suffix" call
sign."
To our knowledge, this is the first time since the adoption of
FCC Rule 97.17(f) that a waiver has been granted.
The license for the new call sign K3VOA was mailed from the FCC
office in Gettysburg, PA on May 7th.
- --30--
- --
E. Allen (Al) Brown (B/VOA/BA) WA3FYZ/ZF2LY Voice of America
330 Independence Ave. SW, Room G-748 Computer Services Division
Washington, DC 20547 FAX: +1 202-619-3576
[email protected] ...uunet!voa3!eab Voice: +1 202-619-2020
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iEYEARECAAYFAmKVPGIACgkQ6Pj0az779o5mZQCfTBfAzybuz3hbcXm2qKstbOpz pZMAnRTnpb3yxaEDks/JpCzTSVYYTkw1
=KbEw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)