In May 2010, John Gottschalk, KB1DDK, of Westwood, Massachusetts, requested a new call sign via the FCC’s vanity call sign program. Gottschalk, a General class licensee, requested KK1CQ -- a 2×2 call sign -- and a waiver from the Commission allowing him to hold the call sign. The FCC denied both requests on Tuesday, August 31, 2010.

Per Section 97.19(d) of the Commission’s Rules, an applicant may request a vanity call sign from only 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. Hence, Gottschalk is not eligible to hold a 2×2 call sign (a Group B call sign), as these call signs are reserved and assignable only to Amateur Extra Class and Advanced Class licensees. As such, he requested a waiver to hold the call sign; Gottschalk told the FCC that the previous holder of KK1CQ was a close friend of his whom he wished 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,” the FCC stated in its letter to Gottschalk. “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.”