Many may already follow the transmission schedule from the HAARP station
near Fairbanks, others may not.

They have a detailed PDF file for this weeks schedule which will be done
in support of a series of Rocket launches from the nearby Poker Flat
Research Range also near Fairbanks.

Kent has created a page on the Anchorage ARC website at:

That page has all the relevant links including the notice, and a link to
file a reception report which they encourage.

HAARP Website: https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/

ARRL Northwestern Division
Director: Mark J. Tharp, KB7HDX
kb7hdx@arrl.org

Many individuals, including Northwestern Division members, have written
to their members of Congress asking for their support of the Amateur
Radio Emergency Preparedness Act. In fact, over 161,000 letters have
been sent by not only U.S. Hams, but even by non-hams and GMRS licensees
who believe the elimination of restrictions on the right of Americans to
communicate as they chose is important.

At present, the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act is still in
committee (the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation). In order to be
voted on and passed in this Congress, the bill would have to be approved
by these two committees. Current membership of these two Congressional
committees is available here:

https://www.commerce.senate.gov/about/members/
https://energycommerce.house.gov/representatives

In the House, the bill has 32 sponsors at present.

If you have already sent a letter to your Congressional representatives,
thank you! However, more can be done to advance this bill.

Call your Congressman and Senator and ask them to support passage of the
Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act (H.R. 1094 in the U.S. House
and S. 459 in the U.S. Senate). Your continued help with securing their
support on their respective committees is critical to advancing the bill
this year.

ARRL Northwestern Division
Director: Mark J. Tharp, KB7HDX
kb7hdx@arrl.org

4/1/22

By Maria Somma, AB1FM, ARRL VEC Manager

The FCC released a Public Notice on March 23, 2022, stating that the
amateur radio application fees, including those associated with Form 605
application filings, would become effective on April 19, 2022. The
Federal Communications Commission’s authority to impose and collect fees
is mandated by Congress.

The $35 application fee, when it becomes effective on April 19, will
apply to new, renewal, and modification applications that request a new
vanity call sign. The fee will be per application.

Administrative updates, such as a change of name, mailing or email
address, and modification applications to upgrade an amateur radio
licensee’s operator class, will be exempt from fees. (this new
information was just confirmed by FCC staff on Tuesday, March 29.)

VECs and Volunteer Examiner (VE) teams will not have to collect the $35
fee at exam sessions.

Once the FCC application fee takes effect, new applicants will pay the
$15 exam session fee to the ARRL VE team as usual and pay the $35
application fee directly to the FCC by using the CORES FRN Registration
system. VEC and VE team licensing procedures will not change.

When the FCC receives the examination information from the VEC, it will
email a link with payment instructions to each qualifying candidate. The
candidate will have 10 calendar days, from the date of the application
file number being issued, to pay. After the fee is paid, and the FCC has
processed an application, examinees will receive a second email from the
FCC with a link to their official license or, in very rare instances, an
explanation for why the application was dismissed or denied. The link
will be valid for 30 days.

Per usual procedures, examinees that pass multiple exams at one session,
will have one application transmitted to the FCC reflecting the
highest-level license class earned. Again, our procedures will not
change. The new license candidates will have an extra step before the
license is issued. VE teams can point candidates to our FCC Application
Fee webpage. Our new ARRL VEC CSCEs also include information about the
application fee and points candidates to the webpage. The FCC rule
pertaining to CSCEs will not change. CSCE credit will continue to be
valid for 365 days, starting from the date of issuance.

For VE teams holding exam sessions the weekend before April 19, the FCC
advised that applications not received by the FCC before April 19 will
be subjected to the fee. The ARRL VEC urges teams to upload sessions via
our documents upload page to get your sessions to us as quickly as
possible. Assuming the FCC electronic batch filing (EBF) system is
functioning properly on Monday, April 18, the VEC staff will work to get
these to the FCC before April 19. Email the VEC department at
VEC@arrl.org for the upload instructions.

Additionally, the FCC stated that the fee for applications processed
and dismissed will not be refundable. This includes vanity requests
where the applicant does not receive the requested call sign. However,
returned applications that are missing information will not require an
additional fee, if the missing information is submitted to the FCC
within the proper amount of time.

Youth Licensing Grant Program

Anticipating the implementation of the fee in 2022, the ARRL Board of
Directors, approved the ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program in July 2021.
Under the program, ARRL will cover a one-time $35 application fee for
license candidates younger than 18-years old for tests administered
under the auspices of the ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (ARRL
VEC). Qualified candidates also would pay a reduced exam session fee of
$5 to the ARRL VEC. ARRL is finalizing details for administering the
program.

Further news and instructions will follow as the FCC releases them.
Details for the ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program will be posted when
available. For additional information, visit the resources below.

ARRL VEC Application Fees webpage:

arrl.org/fcc-application-fee

ARRL News Story:
arrl.org/news/new-amateur-radio-license-applications-fee-to-become-effective-april-19-2022

FCC CORES Video Tutorials:
fcc.gov/licensing-databases/fcc-registration-system-cores/commission-registration-system-video-tutorials

FCC Registration Help: apps.fcc.gov/cores/publicHome.do?help=true

ARRL Northwestern Division
Director: Michael T Ritz, W7VO
w7vo@arrl.org

Hello Team,

I hope this finds each of you well!

In response to the newly adopted FCC guidelines for evaluating environmental effects of RF emissions, we have added a direct link under our Resources Menu to the ARRL Website for the recently announced RF Exposure Calculator.

Best of 73,

Michael – KG7HQ

5/15/19 – As of this morning, It appears we have all the artifacts removed, and the site back to it’s original function. I personally apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
73 de KG7HQ

If our efforts to apply continuous improvements to this new site, we installed a function that is behaving badly as it is interfering with our user profiles and login in functions.

We have tried removing the offending plugin but have found that it is leaving artifacts behind that will prevent all but the Administrators from being able to login. I have a ticket in with the coder on this as well as I will be digging in to see if I can manually remove these left overs without impacting the site.

You may see some weird looking site elements as I step through working on this. If this is the case, please stop by a little later as I don’t intend to impact the users for long lengths of time.

Thank you es 73, KG7HQ