During the government shutdown, the FCC was kind of working, kind of not was working on what they called essential items, whatever the heck that's defined as okay, But during that time they were not issuing renewals or new Ham radio licenses, but VEES, volunteer examiners and vec's Volunteer exam coordinator groups were still giving Ham radio tests and Ham radio upgrade tests and new license tests. And during that time forty three days of government shutdown, they took about twenty five
hundred new applications for amateur radio licenses. So, guys, that tells me the amateur radio is just freaking dying. I did a video last week. Not sure the timing of the premieres of all these, but last week I recorded a video about how is HAM radio outdated? Is it dying? Is the numbers are dwindling? And you know, we proved that that part was wrong, okay, because since two thousand and seven or so, the numbers have been going up, either going up or staying steady. Watch that video. You
can see more about that over there. But I found this article. Thanks Carlos for sending this to me. Carlos the Skydiving Monkey parachute Jesus as they call him. He sent me this article. He's like, dude, this is right up your ally. I'm like, yep, you're right about that. ABORLVC ready to file twenty five hundred plus twenty five hundred plus Ham Radio license applications. FCC extends renewal filing date.
So if your FCC Ham Radio license or GMRS license or other personal radio license it talks about right here, amateur ship ship license, aircraft GMRS commercial operator's license, if that was up for renewal during this government shutdown, you've received an extension. You've received an extension. Renewal filings originally due on October first through and including March fifth of twenty twenty six are now due on March fifth of
twenty twenty six. So everything that was expired, everything that was coming up for renewal between the first of October twenty twenty five and the fifth of March twenty twenty six, almost six months, five months worth of renewals have all been pushed to March fifth, So you've got several months. You have a year and a half for the amateur radio license. You have a year and a half after your license. If you let it expire, you have a
year and a half to renew it without taking a test. Again, you can't operate during that time, but you can just renew it and not take a test and go on about your day. But this is a story on the ABRL website. It is got a lot of information about the government shut down here and it says let's see on Thursday morning. So the first thing I noticed is the original article was on eleven eighteen, which at the time of this recording was about three days ago. They
updated it yesterday, updated eleon twenty five. FCC system issues affecting application processing. So the website's not working big and a lot of you have commented saying I've tried to get the website to work. I tried to get my GMRS license. You just go in there and sign your name and put, you know, fill out the form and pay your thirty five bucks and you get a GMRS license. And I have heard reports of that failing recently as well.
So on Thursday morning, an official alert was posted on the FCC website about the FCC systems experiencing significant performance degradation right here. I don't know if we're just bombarding it too much, or if their website just sucks. I'm not sure. While some applications were successfully processed yesterday afternoon, it appears that currently the EBF system is no longer
accepting applications. According to the website, there will be substantial delays in retrieving such search results, slower delay processing of new apps, modifications, renewals, assigned is transfers and other filings, intermittent timeouts during submission, general sluggishness, inability to complete application fee payments. Okay. FCC technical staff and contractors are actively investigating the cause in are working to restore normal system
performance as quickly as possible. Issue is being treated with the highest priority, highest party. The FCC gives anyway. Commission will post additional notices when system performance has been restored. In La la la la during the shut Now this is the cool part right here. During the shutdown, the able r l VEC urged volunteer examiners to continue giving Ham radio exams. See important information from for abrl VEC
exam candidates. Quote. We have over twenty five hundred license applications queued up, said Soma Soma's referring to manager Maria Soma AB one FM ablel VC Maria Soma, and she explained that the announcement means the amateurs whose license expired here or will expire between October first and March fifth, may continue to operate until completing a license renewal by March fifth. So you can continue to operate even if your license is expired in October. Just keep going because
now your renewal date has been pushed back to March fifth. So, she says, we have over twenty five hundred licensed applications queued up. She noted that the A double orl VEC has already started to file the backlog of applications at least start quote again, at least for now when the FCC again resumes processing, they are limiting each use each EBF user like a double or l VEC to upload no more than seventy five applications per hour per hour.
Seventy five applications per hour. When I first read that, I thought that said per day. It says seventy five applications per hour. To ensure the system is stable, she asks applicants to be patient during the FCC process backlog for a double l VC exam candidates who are unable
to get an FCC FRN. If you have a GMRS license or a GOROLL license, or any type of any type of radio lessons at all, you have a FCC registration number what's called an FRN, and the FCC cords system was unavailable, Please follow these steps to ensure your license applications ready to be processed promptly once the EBF system comes back online. So that gives some steps here
to And I've heard some of this as well. I've heard some people saying that, hey, I can't even get an f r A number, I can't log into the website, there's some kind of error, it's slow, it's sluggish, whatnot. And I've been hearing that for a while. Actually, I don't know if they took any of that down during the forty three day government shutdown. Regardless, we have we have over twenty five hundred applications and it doesn't really
break down. Are they new applications and renewals? I don't know. It sounds like they're new applications to me. Now you say new applications, there might be people who have their tech or general license that went into a VC and took their extra test or took their general upgrade from technician test and got that upgrade, and that might be one of those twenty five hundred I don't know if
it's twenty five hundred brand new people or not. This article does not break it down that specifically, and quite frankly, they probably don't have that information until they loaded into a computer somewhere and then have the numbers read back to them. So I don't know. I don't know how they're doing it. And you know, if they're using exam tools, then it's probably calculating it pretty accurately. If they're using paper logs, which is still a thing, then who knows
how many it is. But either way, either way, if you are interested in getting your Ham Radio license or your upgrade, I highly recommend Ham Radio Prep go to Ham radioprep dot com. Check out all of their license courses license classes. During Black Friday during the month of November and end of December, they are offering a huge bundle of all of their courses for a very deep discounted price. They have a satellite course, they have an MCom course, they have a Bowlfang basics or a radio
basics course. They have an HF radio course. They have all three lives courses for Technician, General, and Extra. They're offering a Black Friday discount on that entire package, and in addition to that, you can save a twenty percent discount with the coupon code of Jason twenty. Jason twenty will get you twenty percent off of all of their packages, individual courses or a bundle package anything from Hamradio Prep dot com. Appreciate those guys support over the last two
or three years. They've been a good sponsor of the channel. They're fun to talk to at hamfests. They've gotten a lot of people licensed over the course of the last few years. So Hamradio Prep dot com go check them out and get on the bandwagon to get your imateure radio license like these other twenty five hundred people right here. But if you have if you are having problem getting your frin, here is what you do and I will put a link to this article in the description blow
so you guys can go check that out. Register for your CORESE account at this url right here. Apps dot FCC dot gov, slash CORSE, slash log in userlog in dot do using your email address and your username, verify your account and log in to obtain your FCCFRN. Be sure to register as an individual entered your personal information exactly as it appears on your photo ID. When you receive your FRN, save it carefully. This is your permanent
FCC identifier. Send your name, test date, and new FRN to ablel VC email VEC at a doblel dot org and there we go. There's other vcs out there. Glarg Alaska has a VC, WIYI has a VC. A DOUBLEL is one of many VCS Volunteer Exam Coordinator group that is out there. They do a fantastic job. And if you go through another VC, that's totally fine as well. Just go study and go get your hand radio license. So, but twenty five hundred applications waiting, twenty five hundred in
forty three days. In the last forty three days the government was shut down for forty three days. They reopened the government about about a week ago at the time of this recording, around November thirteen, okay, but prior to that it was forty three day and apparently a week ago they still can't get the website to work. So I don't know, but yeah, twenty five hundred plus backlog applications for amateur radio licensed guys. Amateur radio is not dying.
It's getting more popular, it's getting better, it's evolving, but it is not dying. I'd like to know have you experienced problems with the FCC website? Have you tried even GMRS? Have you tried to get a GMRS license? Have you tried to get an FRN. Have you tried to get your HAM radio license upgrade? Or have you taken a new exam and you're still waiting on your call sign. You're still waiting on your upgrade because everything's been so
slow right now during this government shutdown. Put a comment in the description below let me know what your specific situation is. I would love to hear from you. Seventy three. If you enjoy this video, check out these videos over here because this is what YouTube thinks you want to watch next. Seventy three