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Author Topic: When Was IFirst Licensed?  (Read 766 times)

W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #15 on: December 31, 2020, 03:03:19 PM »

Quote from: W3HF
V55N3 was Fall (not Summer) 1977, following the 50+ year tradition. But Winter 77-78 (which should have been V55N4 per the old tradition) was given the V56N1 number, starting the numbering system that lasted until the last book was published 19 years later.

i admit i am confused.  it still shows me as a General in the "Winter 1978" callbook.  That makes me think it was actually printed in early 1977 because I upgraded to Advanced a month after becoming a General at the Chicago FCC Office sometime in the time frame of February - April 1977...

do you know how long the delay was before an upgrade tended to be published in callbooks back then?

I don't think there's a definitive answer, and certainly not one that spans all years. But relevant to your question, I became WN2FKS in May of 1976. My license was issued on 28 May 1976--I still have the original. And I appeared in the Fall 76 Callbook Supplement on page 5. So the delay was only a few months during summer of 1976.

Because Novice calls were issued sequentially, we can try and guess a little about the publication date by interpolating between the first and last Novice licenses in that issue. (This presumes that the rate of issuing calls was constant during the three-month period. That's not perfect for a number of reasons, but it's the best estimate we have.) WN2BIQ was the first Novice (in the 2nd district), and WN2GTO was the last. FKS was just about 75% of the way from BIQ to GTO. So if the callsign issuance hit 75% of the 91-day cycle on 5/28/76, then the cutoff date for publication of the issue was 6/19/76. (Again, this is just an estimate.) Since the publication date was officially 1 Sept 1976, that puts the delay between 5-1/3 months (if you just missed the previous issue) and 2-1/3 months (if you just made the cutoff date).

It's a similar long story, but I came up with almost the exact same estimate in 1987, trying to determine what the cutoff date was for the 1987 summer supplement, to see if it could be used to prove a Tech license issued before March 21, 1987. (The answer is yes.)

Now that doesn't help you solve your dilemma of when you upgraded to Advanced, but here's what can: submit a FOIA request to FCC. Here's how to do it.

- The FCC FOIA info page is here. Follow the link near the top to "FOIA Online", and from there to "Create a Request."
- Construct your question precisely, to make it clear what you want, but enlarge the time frame to make sure you cover it.
- You are not exempt from fees, but if you frame your question clearly, then you should fit under the category of "the first 100 pages of the reproduction and the first two hours of search time shall be free of charge." So don't request a fee waiver.

I'd suggest a question like this "Request date of issuance of Advanced class amateur radio license W2ABC to John Doe. Estimated date is in 1977."

Expect to wait a few months for a reply.
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N9FB

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #16 on: December 31, 2020, 03:35:20 PM »

Hi Steve and thanks for the reply!  I am not so concerned about the precise date i became an Advanced  -- I know for a fact I was a Novice in Fall 1976 and became a General in Feb or March 1977 at the Chicago FCC Office and then went back and passed the Advanced about one month after (and no than May 1977).  So what confuses me is that the Callbook dubbed "Winter 1978" shows me as a General...

what would the date of publication for the Winter 1978 Callbook be? March 1977?
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W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #17 on: December 31, 2020, 04:20:43 PM »

what would the date of publication for the Winter 1978 Callbook be? March 1977?
The official publication date was 1 Dec 1977, so the cutoff date would have been ~20 September.

Have you looked for when your novice and general calls showed up, and are they consistent with ? What were they? I can look them up.
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N9FB

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2020, 04:32:38 PM »

Quote from: N9FB
what would the date of publication for the Winter 1978 Callbook be? March 1977?

Quote from: W3HF
The official publication date was 1 Dec 1977, so the cutoff date would have been ~20 September.

Have you looked for when your novice and general calls showed up, and are they consistent with ? What were they? I can look them up.

yes: i appear in the Winter "1977" Callbook (which says Winter 1976/77 so it must have been published in December 1976?) as a Novice which makes sense because I passed my Novice at or near Sept 1976

In the Winter "1978" Callbook i appear as a General


It seems to me the years are really misnomers and one should subtract one from the year to get the true Winter covered?  Yet one month after I passed my General I passed the Advanced and i know I had just turned age 15 so it would have been very late March or April 1977 when that occurred.  I cant find any supplemental publications online to check when my Advanced first appeared in a callbook.  In Winter 1979 I appear as an Advanced in district 0 (we moved to Missouri from 9-land when I was about to turn 16 in Spring 1978),  I also appear in the 9 District under my original callsign, but it says "now KA0BWA")


« Last Edit: December 31, 2020, 04:41:37 PM by N9FB »
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W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2020, 04:53:43 PM »

Yes, the "1977 Callbook" is really the Winter 76-77 issue. That was the point of my post last night. It's really not a misnomer--their intent was that this was the book to use in 1977. It's kind of like the way car companies release their "new year" cars during the fall of the previous year.

And if you appear in that issue, that means your license had been issued by mid-September of 1976.

I really encourage you to do the FOIA request. I presume you no longer have the original licenses. Without them, the FCC records are the only way to resolve when the licenses were issued.

So seriously, what was your callsign sequence? I can look them all up, as I have a copy of every RAC callbook and supplement issued in the 1970s.



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W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2020, 05:43:48 PM »

I figured out enough of the calls from your last post.

As you had indicated, WB9YCA first shows up (as a Novice) in the Winter 1976-77 book. Note that this one is the last one that has on its cover both the words "Winter 1976-77" (admittedly in very fine print) and "For use throughout 1977." You are on page 611, far right column. You are not in the earlier books. (And as a side note, if you had received a Novice license much earlier, you would have received a WN9 call. Those were automatically converted to WA or WB calls by Fall 76.) As I had said earlier, this is consistent with a license issued prior to mid-September 1976.

Your upgrade to General first shows up in the Summer 1977 Supplement, page 67, first column. Official publication date of the summer issue was 1 June, so that means a license that would have been issued between mid-December 1976 and mid-March of 1977.

In the "1978 Callbook" aka Winter 77-78, you are still listed as a General, page 847, first column.

Your upgrade to Advanced first shows up in the Summer 1978 Supplement, page 86, middle column. This was published one year after the Summer 77 issue, and indicates a license issued between mid-December 1977 and mid-March 1978.

And as you posted, by the "1979 Callbook" aka Winter 78-79 (it should never be called Winter 1979 precisely because of the confusion you are experiencing), your WB9YCA is shown as "forwarding" to KA0BWA on page 917.

I didn't follow the trail past this point.

The callbook records indicate you were a General for about a year, give or take a month or so, and upgraded to Advanced in spring of 1978 (not 1977). I know that's not your recollection, but the only way to prove the books are wrong (without the original licenses) is the FOIA request I mentioned.
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N9FB

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #21 on: January 01, 2021, 05:00:43 AM »

I figured out enough of the calls from your last post.

As you had indicated, WB9YCA first shows up (as a Novice) in the Winter 1976-77 book. Note that this one is the last one that has on its cover both the words "Winter 1976-77" (admittedly in very fine print) and "For use throughout 1977." You are on page 611, far right column. You are not in the earlier books. (And as a side note, if you had received a Novice license much earlier, you would have received a WN9 call. Those were automatically converted to WA or WB calls by Fall 76.) As I had said earlier, this is consistent with a license issued prior to mid-September 1976.

Your upgrade to General first shows up in the Summer 1977 Supplement, page 67, first column. Official publication date of the summer issue was 1 June, so that means a license that would have been issued between mid-December 1976 and mid-March of 1977.

In the "1978 Callbook" aka Winter 77-78, you are still listed as a General, page 847, first column.

Your upgrade to Advanced first shows up in the Summer 1978 Supplement, page 86, middle column. This was published one year after the Summer 77 issue, and indicates a license issued between mid-December 1977 and mid-March 1978.

And as you posted, by the "1979 Callbook" aka Winter 78-79 (it should never be called Winter 1979 precisely because of the confusion you are experiencing), your WB9YCA is shown as "forwarding" to KA0BWA on page 917.

I didn't follow the trail past this point.

The callbook records indicate you were a General for about a year, give or take a month or so, and upgraded to Advanced in spring of 1978 (not 1977). I know that's not your recollection, but the only way to prove the books are wrong (without the original licenses) is the FOIA request I mentioned.

if that is the case then somehow the callbook failed to change my G to an A in whatever edition followed the Summer 1977 supplement that was published June 1, 1977 and included upgrades and callsigns that were issued by the FCC between mid-December 1976 and mid-March of 1977.

my best recollection was that I successfully passed the General Class between late February and late March at the Chicago FCC office (the examiner encouraged me to take the Advanced after he told me I passed the General exam -- but I failed the Advanced exam by just a few questions).  I distinctly remember that i returned to take another try at the Advanced almost exactly 30 days later (i think there was a minimum time requirement between attempts?) and passed. (The examiner then encouraged me to try the Extra, but the 20 wpm code test was first and when i put on the headphones i was tight as a drum with panicky thoughts of "you must have 1 minute of perfect copy" messed with my head as i tried to write down the fast code i was hearing... and i failed).  I remember that i either was about to or had just turned 15 when I passed the Advanced so it was definitely late March or early April 1977... Both trips to the FCC office involved taking a commuter train from the northern Chicago suburbs

i am not that interested in the FOIA because the 1 in a million chance i could incur fees turns me off -- and because of my certainty about becoming an Advanced in the first part of 1977 less than 45 days after passing the General. I also know it wasnt as late as 1978 because we moved to Missouri where we had no trees to support a wire antenna and i got my first driver's license in March 1978 (issued by the state of Missouri) and i did not own a rig again until 30 years later (i did occasionally operate club stations, such as the one at SIU).  Also, when we moved to Missouri, I submitted a call district change of address form to the FCC and a next sequential call (I dont remember if the 2x2 option for Advanced was in effect yet then, but if it was i chose to decline it thinking that 0-land would still entail a WB0 callsign... instead i got KA0BWA)  :o

apparently omissions occurred, maybe my change to Advanced occurred right on the cut-off date between Summer 1977 supplement and the Winter 1978 (77/78) book missed the change because it was formatted in a way that presupposed the Summer supplement data waught the date of my upgrade???

as for the N -- i was one of the last to receive one and i wish i had kept the letter the FCC sent me a month or two later in Fall 1976 announcing that the N in my prefix had now become a B because they were eliminating all "N" designations for Novices.  I definitely did not object  :D
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 05:23:14 AM by N9FB »
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W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #22 on: January 01, 2021, 09:09:56 AM »

Rob -

1. I understand your concern about fees, but the form lets you limit the possible cost. You can set that at zero.

2. I've done a lot of research on old callsigns, numbering in the thousands, and I've heard stories similar to yours, with similar assertions of certainty. With no disrespect intended, I have not run across a case where the callbooks were wrong in that they did not reflect accurately the FCC records, especially over so long a period as a year.

Steve
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N2EY

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #23 on: January 01, 2021, 12:00:22 PM »


if that is the case then somehow the callbook failed to change my G to an A in whatever edition followed the Summer 1977 supplement that was published June 1, 1977 and included upgrades and callsigns that were issued by the FCC between mid-December 1976 and mid-March of 1977.

my best recollection was that I successfully passed the General Class between late February and late March at the Chicago FCC office (the examiner encouraged me to take the Advanced after he told me I passed the General exam -- but I failed the Advanced exam by just a few questions).  I distinctly remember that i returned to take another try at the Advanced almost exactly 30 days later (i think there was a minimum time requirement between attempts?) and passed.

Yes, there was a minimum of 30 days to retest "back then".

The real reason for the wait-to-retest thing was because FCC didn't actually have all that many different versions of each written test, and if one could retest after a short or no delay, pretty soon the person being tested would get a test they'd already had before. Today, with the randomizing system used by VECs, and the much larger question pools, the situation is very different.

  I remember that i either was about to or had just turned 15 when I passed the Advanced so it was definitely late March or early April 1977... Both trips to the FCC office involved taking a commuter train from the northern Chicago suburbs.

At least you didn't have to deal with the mutant lake sharks.....

One thing to remember about the FCC back-in-the-day is that they were dependent on the USPS, and the usual bureaucratic delays of the times, so a test passed on, say, April 1 might not even get to FCC HQ for processing for a week or more, and then might sit in the pile for more weeks before being acted upon....by which time the FCC updates to the Callbook folks had already been sent.

73 de Jim, N2EY
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N9FB

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #24 on: January 01, 2021, 09:04:07 PM »

Rob -

1. I understand your concern about fees, but the form lets you limit the possible cost. You can set that at zero.


thanks.  noted.

Quote from: W3HF

2. I've done a lot of research on old callsigns, numbering in the thousands, and I've heard stories similar to yours, with similar assertions of certainty. With no disrespect intended, I have not run across a case where the callbooks were wrong in that they did not reflect accurately the FCC records, especially over so long a period as a year.

Steve

touche!  i feel motivated now my friend :).  I absolutely passed the Advanced around one month after passing the General at the same FCC office in downtown Chicago around Spring of 1977.  Do you think the FCC will definitely get me an answer and how long would you expect it will take?
I plan to get on this tomorrow so your reply will help remind me of my plan :)

since you are more versed than i in this -- is there any issue with asking for two things in same request (the date I upgraded to both General and Advanced in 1977)? -- and is it better to word it that i want the date the exams were passed, the date of the upgrades to General and Advanced, or the date of issuance of the General and Advanced class licenses?
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 09:23:45 PM by N9FB »
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WA8NVW

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Re: When Was I First Licensed?
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2021, 03:26:52 PM »

A few years after the FCC moved their licensing division from DC up to Gettysburg, PA the area surrounding their building was severely flooded.  All the paper record files stored in the basement were lost, including amateur callsign historical archives.  As a result, there should be nothing existing at the FCC for FOIA to recover.  That's why the FCC accepted callbook entries as proof of 5 WPM code testing credit for up-issuing Tech-Plus to General (since expired).
 
The FCC does still accept copies of Callbook pages as evidence when getting an amateur callsign previously held by you reissued to you as a vanity, provided that it is not currently assigned or on admin hold.
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N9FB

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Re: When Was I First Licensed?
« Reply #26 on: January 09, 2021, 03:18:19 AM »

A few years after the FCC moved their licensing division from DC up to Gettysburg, PA the area surrounding their building was severely flooded.  All the paper record files stored in the basement were lost, including amateur callsign historical archives.  As a result, there should be nothing existing at the FCC for FOIA to recover. 

The license info i am seeking centers around 1977, so i think it is likely a FOIA may prove fruitful...

below is an older post from Steve that suggests why:

FCC records only go back to the late 1960s. Records earlier than that were stored at an FCC office that was flooded out during a hurricane in the mid-1970s (I think), and were destroyed. So the only records that exist are paper callbooks, and they only list hams by callsign--there are no alphabetical listings by name.
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W3HF

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Re: When Was I First Licensed?
« Reply #27 on: January 09, 2021, 03:01:35 PM »

A few years after the FCC moved their licensing division from DC up to Gettysburg, PA the area surrounding their building was severely flooded.  All the paper record files stored in the basement were lost, including amateur callsign historical archives.  As a result, there should be nothing existing at the FCC for FOIA to recover. 

The license info i am seeking centers around 1977, so i think it is likely a FOIA may prove fruitful...

below is an older post from Steve that suggests why:

FCC records only go back to the late 1960s. Records earlier than that were stored at an FCC office that was flooded out during a hurricane in the mid-1970s (I think), and were destroyed. So the only records that exist are paper callbooks, and they only list hams by callsign--there are no alphabetical listings by name.

Rob -

Thanks for posting that.

First of all, I had previously mentioned that I had used FOIA to get records of my original Novice license in 1976. So we know that the available records go at least that far back. So I think there's zero probability that FCC will say they don't have your records.

Second, I believe the storm that resulted in the Gettysburg flood was Hurricane Agnes in 1972. If you look at the Wikipedia article, and specifically the accumulated rainfall map, the highest totals (15"!) are very close to Gettysburg.

By around the year 2000, FCC was stating that records prior to about 1968 were lost. That would be consistent with archived records being in a flooded basement, but current records on a higher floor that wasn't damaged by the water.

Steve
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N9FB

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #28 on: January 10, 2021, 02:20:41 AM »

FCC records only go back to the late 1960s. Records earlier than that were stored at an FCC office that was flooded out during a hurricane in the mid-1970s (I think), and were destroyed. So the only records that exist are paper callbooks, and they only list hams by callsign--there are no alphabetical listings by name.

[....] I believe the storm that resulted in the Gettysburg flood was Hurricane Agnes in 1972. If you look at the Wikipedia article, and specifically the accumulated rainfall map, the highest totals (15"!) are very close to Gettysburg.

By around the year 2000, FCC was stating that records prior to about 1968 were lost. That would be consistent with archived records being in a flooded basement, but current records on a higher floor that wasn't damaged by the water.

Wow, if hurricane Agnes dumped 15 inches of rain on Gettysburg PA in 1972, it stands to reason that the older FCC records that were kept in the basement at the time were destroyed.  i remember when a hurricane dumped 7 inches of rain in southern Illinois in the early 1990's and how astounded i was walking around and seeing how much a local stream had flooded over its banks... 15 inches (in just a few days) is crazy  :o

Right now about 11.5% of US hams have callsigns that don't match their current mailing address.

Hi Steve, i am reposting that last quote above that you posted in 2012 with a question: do you know what the percentage of hams who have callsigns that do not match their call districts is today? As someone who entered ham radio almost 45 years ago when callsigns did match a station's call district (or they identified as portable in the call district they were transmitting from) i miss those days and wonder how "bad" it's gotten? (but the only times i can think of where it really stands on its head for me is when i hear a DX station running pileups by numbers and calls "QRZ -- western USA stations; sixes or sevens only" ?)  ;)
« Last Edit: January 10, 2021, 02:23:57 AM by N9FB »
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W3HF

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Re: When Was IFirst Licensed?
« Reply #29 on: January 10, 2021, 02:05:45 PM »

Right now about 11.5% of US hams have callsigns that don't match their current mailing address.

Hi Steve, i am reposting that last quote above that you posted in 2012 with a question: do you know what the percentage of hams who have callsigns that do not match their call districts is today? As someone who entered ham radio almost 45 years ago when callsigns did match a station's call district (or they identified as portable in the call district they were transmitting from) i miss those days and wonder how "bad" it's gotten? (but the only times i can think of where it really stands on its head for me is when i hear a DX station running pileups by numbers and calls "QRZ -- western USA stations; sixes or sevens only" ?)  ;)

Rob -

No, I don't, and I don't have the database skills to manipulate the FCC data to "mine" this. I was quoting a statistic that was published on VanityHQ.com, but that web site is now defunct. I haven't found another site that has that info, at least easily accessible.

Steve
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