VECs Process Mountain of Paperwork

QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 26 ARLB026
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT May 12, 2000
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB026
ARLB026 VECs Struggle with Paperwork Mountain

Despite an infusion of temporary help, Volunteer Examiner
Coordinators continue struggling to process the huge influx of exam
session paperwork resulting from Amateur Radio restructuring.
ARRL-VEC and W5YI-VEC continue to estimate that it is taking from
three to four weeks from exam session to license grant.

ARRL-VEC Manager Bart Jahnke, W9JJ, and his staff have been putting
in a lot of overtime and weekend hours. Fred Maia, W5YI, cites a
similar situation at his W5YI-VEC. ''We've got mail buckets
everywhere,'' he said.

Jahnke and Maia say processing is proceeding as fast as possible.
They urge amateur applicants to refrain from contacting either their
respective VECs or the FCC to inquire as to the progress of
individual applications.

Applicants wishing to file a vanity call sign application or to
upgrade their Volunteer Examiner status cannot do so without a
license grant from the FCC reflecting the applicant's upgraded
class. In a few cases, applicants are awaiting first-time amateur
licenses and do not even have interim operating authority.

Jahnke says the ARRL-VEC has caught up with the paperwork backlog
from pre-April 15 test sessions. The ARRL-VEC served nearly 35,800
applicants between January 1 and April 14. It continues to deal with
the nearly 16,000 applications logged in from April 15 through April
25. Jahnke points out that while VE teams have 10 days to ship
session paperwork, transit times can be as long as a week.

Once keyed in and sent on electronically to the FCC, most
applications are granted overnight. Jahnke says the care ARRL-VEC
takes in checking VE session paperwork and applications for
''completeness, accuracy and integrity'' pays off in avoiding problems
down the road.

Statistics to date suggest a total of more than 13,000 new Generals
and more than 10,000 new Extra class hams as a result of
restructuring.

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