Rob Rosenberger, K4HST, calls it the FCC's "payment labyrinth" -- and he believes it is responsible for the failed attempts by 1 in 18 hams to complete their payment of the $35 license-renewal fee. He came to his conclusions after analyzing the FCC's downloadable, publicly accessible two-year archive starting in 2024.

In the US, the $35 fee applies to new license grants as well as renewals, vanity call signs and any modifications, such as upgrades.

Rob, who is a retired systems analyst, said that his study shows that some hams have actually had repeated failures to make their payments - some as many as seven times. He said, however, [quote] "nine out of ten folks who stumbled into the labyrinth decided not to map it out a second time." [endquote] In the period he analyzed, he said, 3,901 hams successfully renewed their callsign each month -- but another 783 simply did not bother trying again and were lost to attrition..

Rob said the numbers point out the need for clubs and others, such as the ARRL, to focus on the hams who fail the payment process in the ULS system before they lose their callsign after the FCC's two-year grace period. He said the solution begins at the local level - and ham radio clubs can reduce the failure-to-pay rate through outreach to those who may need assistance. His study has enabled him to produce free downloadable PDFs that list all operators, sorted by city and state, who are within three months of losing their callsign. The URL for the download is listed in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org