Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 August 31, 2010 DA 10-1658 Mr. John H. Gottschalk, Jr. 192 Canton Street Westwood, MA 02090-2204 Re: Application FCC File No. 0004250159 (filed May 17, 2010) Dear Mr. Gottschalk: This letter addresses your request, dated May 17, 2010, for a waiver of the amateur service rules to permit the call sign KK1CQ to be assigned to your amateur station, even though you do not hold an operator license of the requisite class. For the reasons set forth below, we deny your waiver request, and will dismiss your application. Under Section 97.19(d) of the Commission’s Rules, 47 C.F.R. § 97.19(d), an applicant may request a vanity call sign only from the group of call signs corresponding to the same or lower class of operator license held by the applicant, as designated in the sequential call sign system. Call sign KK1CQ is a Group B call sign, assignable to Amateur Extra Class and Advanced Class licensees. Because you hold a General Class license, you request a waiver to permit the call sign to be assigned to your station. In support of this request, you state that the deceased former holder of this call sign was a close friend, whom you wish to memorialize. When the Commission implemented the vanity call sign system, it provided that no licensee could receive a vanity call sign corresponding to a higher license class, because this would be unfair to other licensees who passed the examination for that license class.1 The Commission also concluded that it was reasonable to require the licensee to upgrade to the requisite license class in order to be eligible for the desired call sign. We conclude that grant of your waiver request is not appropriate because you have not shown that you could not or cannot upgrade to an Amateur Extra Class operator license. We also conclude that grant of the waiver would not be in the public interest because it would deprive other, eligible licensees of the opportunity to request this call sign. Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that the waiver request filed by John H. Gottschalk, Jr., on May 17, 2010, IS DENIED, and application FCC File No. 0004250159 SHALL BE DISMISSED. This action is taken under delegated authority pursuant to Sections 0.131 and 0.331 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 C.F.R. §§ 0.131, 0.331. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Scot Stone Deputy Chief, Mobility Division Wireless Telecommunications Bureau 1 See Amendment of the Amateur Service Rules to Implement a Vanity Call Sign System, Memorandum Opinion and Order, PR Docket No. 93-305, 10 FCC Rcd 11135, 11136-37 ¶ 9 (1995).