The email renewal is a great benefit I always tout. Just email the VEC and ask them to renew your license - easy! Yes, you can do it through the FCC but for many non tech savvy hams the FCC site is too complicated Ria N2RJ On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 5:10 PM Michael Ritz <w7vo@comcast.net> wrote:
Yes. Apparently either Barry or Carla intercepted my ODV question and sent it to Maria Somma. Maria came back with a response right away to the member, copying me. I thought the answer she gave was rather elegant:
"As one of the many benefits we offer, ARRL members will automatically receive a License Expiration Notice form from ARRL.
Under *normal* circumstances, ARRL will mail renewal reminders approximately 90 days before the license expiration date. http://www.arrl.org/expiration-notices
ARRL staff has been working remotely since March 23 and therefore could not mail packages, renewal notices, etc.
ARRL partially re-opened on May 26 and on-site staff began processing the 1,000s of renewal notices waiting in the queue to be printed and shipped.
As of last week, we are caught up and renewal reminders for members that have licenses expiring through October 2020 will receive the packet of information.
I’m glad to hear you were able to easily renew your license directly with FCC. Please discard the paper notice when it arrives. As an ARRL member, ARRL VEC would have been able to renew your license with the FCC via email or on the phone or walk you through the FCC website process if you needed assistance. We also help members file vanity call sign requests and other license transactions. Please keep us in mind if you or any family or friends have any other licensing needs.
We appreciate your membership and thank you for your understanding as we navigate these unprecedented times."
Great work, and yet another example of our fine ARRL staff in action! I sent a thank you note to Maria, and copied both Barry and Carla.
Note that I posted the question to ODV rather than directly to staff so the answer could be shared with all of us here. Others may be getting the same question. And now we all know "the rest of the story!"
73; Mike W7VO
On June 10, 2020 at 1:11 PM Rod Stafford <w6rod@comcast.net> wrote:
Mike,
Did you get a private response from someone at HQ? I didn’t see if your question was answered. I was curious because I have that as a bullet point in membership benefits.
The ARRL web site says:
As one of the many benefits we offer ARRL Members, ARRL members will automatically receive a License Expiration Notice Form from ARRL. This notice has instructions on amateur license renewal and is sent once the license is *just outside* the 90-day window for renewal. This will be a letter with a form at the bottom of the letter to sign and return to the ARRL VEC*.* Amateurs can renew no sooner than 90 days before the expiration of the license.
Members should contact the ARRL VEC <vec@arrl.org> directly to renew their license if the renewal notification is not received in the mail.
So, if the process is being followed, K2PO should have received a notice just before the start of the 90 day period before license lapse. I wonder if the fact that full staff is not back in the HQ building had some effect of that process. It seems the notification process ought to be automated but maybe someone has to personally tend to it.
73, Rod
____________________________________
Rod Stafford W6ROD
ARRL Int’l Affairs Vice President
www.flickr.com/rodstaffordphotography
*From:* arrl-odv [mailto:arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org] *On Behalf Of *Michael Ritz *Sent:* Wednesday, June 10, 2020 8:01 AM *To:* arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org *Subject:* [arrl-odv:30410] Fwd: [wvdxc] FCC License Renewal
Can anybody tell me if this is still a "member benefit"?
73;
Mike
W7VO
---------- Original Message ---------- From: "Bill, K2PO" <bill@conwellpdx.com> To: wvdxc@groups.io Date: June 10, 2020 at 7:47 AM Subject: [wvdxc] FCC License Renewal
I had the impression that the ARRL would remind me when it was time to renew my license. I thought I'd seen that was a perk of membership - since they can scan the FCC database weekly and easily send out reminders to folks whose licenses are newly eligible for renewal (the window for which opens 90 days before expiration).
I had occasion to check my FCC data yesterday, in connection with qualifying as a proctor for an Anchorage ARC remote exam for a local fellow, and found my license expires in 80-some days.
Perhaps ARRL sent a reminder and it just hasn't arrived yet - 'hope so.
I quickly renewed (it's free and painless), but it was a little jarring to think of how close I may have been to having my license expire.
You might want to check your own license's expiration date, and check that you've got a good reminder system in place. I've now got a reminder in Google Calendar by which it will send me an email 3 months before expiration (the set-up for which took longer to figure out than the renewal process).
73,
/Bill, K2PO
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