From The ARRL Letter, July 02, 2015

The Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 Introduced in the US Senate

A companion Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 bill has been introduced in the US Senate. Mississippi Republican Sen Roger Wicker introduced S. 1685 on June 25, with Connecticut Democratic Sen Richard Blumenthal as the initial cosponsor. The Senate bill joins an identical measure in the US House, H.R. 1301, which was introduced in March by Illinois Republican Rep Adam Kinzinger. Both measures would direct the FCC to extend its rules relating to reasonable accommodation of Amateur Service communications to private land-use restrictions.
“Introduction of the Senate bill is a huge step toward achieving fairness for amateurs affected by private land-use regulation,” said ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN. “For them and for the future of Amateur Radio, I thank everyone who contributed to making this progress. Now let’s finish the job!”
Wicker said the bill he introduced with Blumenthal’s cosponsorship would allow for transparency and equality in the regulatory process. He said in a June 29 media release that the legislation would ensure that Amateur Radio operators are able to continue to provide “critical communications support at no cost to taxpayers.”
“This would be particularly beneficial in Mississippi and other rural states,” Wicker said. “During Hurricane Katrina, Mississippians learned firsthand the value of Amateur Radio, and its ability to provide information that could save lives in times of natural disasters.”
According to Wicker, the measure “ensures ‎increased access to, and availability of, critical resources and communication tools” to first responders. Added Blumenthal, “We have seen the effectiveness of these systems, and the need to provide these emergency response systems to Americans, regardless of where you live, is evident.”
Wicker pointed out that private land-use restrictions prevent many hams from installing functional outdoor antennas. “This bill would call on FCC to apply the reasonable accommodation policy evenly to all types of residential land-use regulations and offer Amateur Radio operators the ability to negotiate with subdivisions that now have restrictions that preclude Amateur Radio antennas completely,” he said. “This could be accomplished without taking any jurisdiction away from homeowners associations and would protect neighborhood aesthetics.”
S. 1685 has been referred to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, chaired by Sen John Thune (R-SD).
The House version of The Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 had attracted support from 83 cosponsors, as of July 1.

Now that there is Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 legislation in both chambers of the US Congress, the League has a combined web page to accommodate activities on behalf of both bills. The Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 is H.R. 1301 in the US House of Representatives and S. 1685 in the US Senate. The Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 page provides a clearinghouse for all information on these identical pieces of legislation.

From Bob Vallio, W6RGG – ARRL Pacific Division Director July 3, 2015
“Please take the time to visit this URL: http://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-parity-act
When you get to that page on our website, you will be able to find the
text of both bills; read the text (both are exactly identical); see
some advice on what to include in your letters, including a sample
letter you may choose to use; find the names of your Representative and
Senators; and the address at ARRL HQ to which you should mail your
letters.
All mail sent to ARRL will be hand-carried to each Representative’s and
Senator’s office, assuring their receipt. Direct mail sent to
legislative offices is very often delayed for some time, by the
necessity that each piece must be inspected for safety reasons. Our
hand-carried mail will not be delayed. Please take the time to visit
the website, and get your letters in the mail as soon as you can.”

From The ARRL Letter, May 28, 2015

“FCC Eliminating Vanity Call Sign Fee

The FCC is dropping the regulatory fee to apply for an Amateur Radio vanity call sign. The change will not go into effect, however, until required congressional notice has been given. This will take at least 90 days. (Bold added by poster)  As the Commission explained in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Report and Order, and Order (MD Docket 14-92 and others), released May 21, it’s a matter of simple economics.

“The Commission spends more resources on processing the regulatory fees and issuing refunds than the amount of the regulatory fee payment,” the FCC said. “As our costs now exceed the regulatory fee, we are eliminating this regulatory fee category.” The current vanity call sign regulatory fee is $21.40, the highest in several years. The FCC reported there were 11,500 “payment units” in FY 2014 and estimated that it would collect nearly $246,100.

In its 2014 Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) regarding the assessment and collection of regulatory fees for FY 2014, the FCC had sought comment on eliminating several smaller regulatory fee categories, such as those for vanity call signs and GMRS. It concluded in the subsequent Report and Order (R&O) last summer, however, that it did not have “adequate support to determine whether the cost of recovery and burden on small entities outweighed the collected revenue or whether eliminating the fee would adversely affect the licensing process.”

The FCC said it has since had an opportunity to obtain and analyze support concerning the collection of the regulatory fees for Amateur Vanity and GMRS, which the FCC said comprise, on average, more than 20,000 licenses that are newly obtained or renewed, every 10 and 5 years, respectively.

“The Commission often receives multiple applications for the same vanity call sign, but only one applicant can be issued that call sign,” the FCC explained. “In such cases, the Commission issues refunds for all the remaining applicants. In addition to staff and computer time to process payments and issue refunds, there is an additional expense to issue checks for the applicants who cannot be refunded electronically.”

The Commission said that after it provides the required congressional notification, Amateur Radio vanity program applicants “will no longer be financially burdened with such payments, and the Commission will no longer incur these administrative costs that exceed the fee payments. The revenue that the Commission would otherwise collect from these regulatory fee categories will be proportionally assessed on other wireless fee categories.”

The FCC said it would not issue refunds to licensees who paid the regulatory fee prior to its elimination.”

From the ARRL VE Newsletter, May 2015

“On July 1, 2015 a new Element 3 General class question pool will take effect for examinations. VECs and VEs will have new test designs available for use at exam sessions effective that date. 

 The newly revised pool released in December 2014 (updated February 11, 2015) by the Question Pool Committee (QPC) of the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) must be in use starting July 1st. There is one graphic required for this pool and 462 questions in this pool, up slightly from 456 in the previous pool. Questions G1E10 and G5B08 have been formally withdrawn from use and should not appear on exams. To view the new General class pool, visit the NCVEC web site at http://ncvec.org/page.php?id=364.

ARRL VEC VE Exam Maker Software will be updated around mid-June with the new General pool and will be available for generating new exam versions. ARRL VEC will supply officially appointed Field Stocked VE teams with new test booklet designs also around mid-June. Teams that hold on to the exam package after their exam session are NOT officially stocked. Non-stocked VE Teams should be returning their exam packages and supplies to ARRL VEC after the session is completed. The officially stocked VE Teams receive their exam supplies in a large box which is a 6 month to year supply depending on the team’s activity levels. To see if your team qualifies to be field-stocked with a bulk quantity of our test materials visit http://www.arrl.org/field-stocked-ve-teams. 

With the General class exam questions changing July 1st, new test designs must be used effective that day. Previous ARRL VEC supplied General class test booklets versions (2011 series) and computer generated General class tests created from the 2011 question pool are only valid until midnight June 30, 2015. At that time VE Team leaders may destroy the old versions of the General exams.

The question pools review is part of a regular process and each question pool is reviewed and updated on a four year rotation. The Extra pool is scheduled for an update in 2016. No question pools are scheduled to be updated or released in 2017. All current question pools and useful information pertaining to the pools can be viewed on the ARRL Web at www.arrl.org/question-pools. “