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ARLB025 Question pool news

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ARRL Bulletin 25  ARLB025
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  May 2, 1996
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB025
ARLB025 Question pool news

A seven-month-old problem that had threatened to disrupt the Amateur
Radio volunteer examiner program has been resolved.

In September 1995, a newly formed corporation called NCVEC Inc
attempted to exert control over the Question Pool Committee (QPC)
that had been formed some years earlier by the organizations that
have entered into agreements with the FCC to serve as Volunteer
Examiner Coordinators (VECs). By unilateral action of the new
corporation and contrary to the FCC rules that require all VECs to
cooperate in the maintenance of question pools, ARRL Volunteer
Examiner Department Manager Bart Jahnke, KB9NM, was dismissed from
the committee. Efforts by the ARRL and the FCC to gain his
reinstatement were not successful until early April.

Ever since the reinstatement, QPC members have been working in good
faith to resolve issues concerning decisions taken by the QPC in the
seven-month period during which it was operating contrary to the
rules. Those issues have now been resolved to the satisfaction of
all participants. Some revisions to the previously released syllabi
for written examination elements 2 and 3A, for the Novice and
Technician licenses, will be announced shortly.

''We are pleased to have this matter resolved,'' said ARRL Executive
Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ. ''The other members of the QPC
appear to understand that the committee is not a creature of NCVEC
Inc, and that no VEC can be excluded from committee participation.
It still is not clear that NCVEC Inc, acknowledges these facts.
However, that is no longer a matter of concern because the FCC has
affirmed that it has no relationship with NCVEC Inc, but only with
the individual VECs.''

Amateur Radio volunteers have been administering and coordinating
FCC examinations for more than 12 years. The ARRL/VEC coordinates
approximately two-thirds of the examinations.
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