Qrz

The "Callsign Project" was born on the internet newsgroup rec.ham-radio (later rec.radio.amateur.misc), and it's initial sponsor was Rusty, Carruth, N7IKQ, who eventually turned it over to Fred when he became unable to continue the effort. The "project" part of the callsign project consisted of obtaining the FCC data tapes and then making copies of... it for distribution to other interested parties. Fred's first experience with the callsign project was largely uneventful since the total distribution consisted only of about 40 copies. At the time, each person requesting a copy of the database would send the Fred a blank tape along with $20 in an SASE. The $20 was to help to recover the cost of obtaining the data from the FCC, which at the time cost over $700 for the two large 9-track (12-inch) mainframe tape reels. Soon, six months had gone by and again it became necessary to obtain a fresh set of FCC tapes. Tired of spending his spare time making tape copies, Fred began to wonder about CDROM - a new but emerging universal format. It didn't really seem possible since the cost of mastering a CDROM (about $2500) was prohibitive given the small number of potential internet customers from past experience. Thinking 'outside the box', Fred began wondering if perhaps there might be an existing shareware CDROM already in publication that possibly had enough unused or spare space to accomodate the callsign data. At the time, the total size of the FCC database was only about 50 megabytes compressed, so it sounded like there might be a possibility. With this in mind, Fred contacted a well known CDROM shareware publisher, Bob Bruce at the now defunct Walnut Creek CDROM, and popped the question: "Do you think you might have an existing CD with 50MB of free space available?". To Fred's surprise, Bob replied with "Why don't we just put together a Ham Radio CDROM? Just send us the material and we'll press it.". With this simple exchange on the phone, Fred started working on his first CDROM project. Shortly thereafter Fred ...Read More