Last Friday afternoon, I managed to take some time to get over to my favorite Sign Company, Art-Trig Corporation, in Leon Valley. They’re located just off off Bandera Road 1 block south of Huebner Road on Sawyer Road. I stopped by the carwash first to get the van cleaned up for putting my new signs on the windows, but shortly after I arrived at Art-Trig, it started raining! 🙁
Yay! for the rain, but Boo! for the timing. I mean, just washed the van, needed to get the lettering installed, it hasn’t rained for days, but now it decides to rain? Oh well, we needed the rain really bad. Fortunately, the rain stopped for about 2o minutes and let them dry off the windows long enough to apply the lettering to the back window and two rear side windows. 10 minutes later, here comes the rain again, heavier than ever!
But, once the lettering is applied, it’s waterproof and thus it didn’t matter any longer. So even though I’m still waiting to get my “real” license plates installed, and then switch over to my ham plates again, my van is “dressed properly” once more.
PS: Regarding Ham Plates. The title company was too confused about the concept of transferring my ham plates from my previous van, so I elected to let them apply for and obtain regular civilian plates for my van, then I’ll submit the paperwork to transfer the “radio operator” plates over to this new van.
You can download the application form VTR-53 (Application for Mobile Amateur Radio Operator License Plates) from the TxDot webpage, then mail the form with a check or money order for $2 to your local tax office, and they’ll authorize new plates with the same renewal period of your current license plates. Ham Plates cost you $1 extra per year, on top of your regular fees. You can have the same ham plates on up to 4 cars or light trucks (<1 ton), which can cause some confusion among newbie law enforcement officers who might think you are running the wrong plates on the wrong vehicle (i.e. stolen). Back in the early 90’s, I had that happen to me when I had 2 vehicles (Chevy Cavalier & Jeep Cherokee) with same ham plates. Was driving the Jeep, got pulled over to be told I had the wrong plates on it because that plate belonged to a red Chevy Cavalier. I asked the officer (politely) to double check the next entry on his screen, and sure enough there was the Jeep listed with the same plates and same owner. He appologized for stopping me and went on his way to find a new victim.
