San Antonio Hams

From ARRL.ORG — On August 11, the FCC announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase $1.10, from $12.30 to $13.40.  Now that notice of the increase has been published in the Federal Register, the increase will take effect in 30 days, September 10, 2009.   The FCC is authorized by the Communications Act of 1934, As Amended, to collect vanity call sign fees to recover the costs associated with that program.  

The vanity call sign regulatory fee is payable not only when applying for a new vanity call sign, but also upon renewing a vanity call sign for a new 10 year term. The notice in the August 11, 2009 Federal Register, entitled “Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2009,” includes regulatory fees; these fees are expected to recover a total of $341,875,000 during FY2009, encompassing all the Services the FCC regulates.

For more information, see the recent ARRLWeb article, “FCC Looks to Raise Vanity Call Sign Fees for Second Consecutive Year.”

Ray Taylor (N5GAR), STX’s long-serving and dedicated SM, retired this year, resulting in a 3-way race for Section Manager of one of the ARRL’s largest Sections.

STX was lucky to have three fine hams, Lee Cooper (W5LHC) from Austin, Lou Everett (WA5LOU) from Kennard and Gary Tangrady (K5GST) from San Antonio vie to replace Ray Taylor.

The ARRL just announced the election results:

A close race between good men.

Congratulations to Lee who will officially take office on October 1, 2009.