Our recent VE Session (November 19) was mailed off on Saturday morning (the same day), from San Rafael. Because the US Postal Service is inundated with holiday mailings, ARRL-VEC is telling us that we should expect delays in processing the session results. The VEC will process a session when they get them in the mail. The VEC got our session in the mail on Friday, December 02. The FCC should post the results by December 07. The delays should get better after the holiday season is completed.
The process is we complete the paperwork, mail the session results to the VEC. (We store a copy of the CSCE issued, the session report, and the candidate roster. We are required to store the paperwork, for a session, for two years.) When the VEC receives the session paperwork, it checks the result, and enters the information into a computer database. Once a business day, the VEC submits an electronic batch file to the FCC. The FCC confirms the information in the electronic batch file, then updates the ULS Database, at the end of the business day.
(Remember back to where we had to get your license in the mail? It could take 3-4 weeks, and you usually had go to the FCC office in San Francisco to take your test. If you failed a test, you had to wait until next month to take another test for the same element.)
