This program was inspired by an article in June 1996 QST, page 55 by Fuat Baran, N2YGN. His article explains how to download the database files. However, his article does not tell how to use what you download. That is the purpose of this program.
This is a FREEWARE program that will take the FCC file that you download, strip out the information not needed, condense and breakdown into prefixes that can be searched by the search routine. Typing in a Callsign will produce a display of the name, street address and city, state and zip code. An address label can also be printed by typing "P" in the Call Search Box. Instructions for the download from the FCC FTP Site is also given in the help screens so referring to the QST article is not necessary.
The download (at 28.8) from the FCC FTP Site takes about 2¼ hours and the conversion process takes 17-20 minutes on a Pentium 90. The beauty of this method is that you can update your database every week if you want to. The only major requirement is about 110MB of hard disk space is required to process the database. The resulting condensed database is about 34.5MB. However, the FCC does break the large file down into 11 smaller files by Zip Code. Therefore, by downloading the small files and processing them one at a time greatly reduces the hard drive space requirement. This procedure is explained in the help screens.
In April 1997 the FCC stopped including the Date of Births in the records. A database of DOB's as of April 1997 was extracted and can be searched by Version 1.8 and later. The FCC also makes available the Class of License and Previous Callsign in a different file. Freeware Version 1.8 and later adds a menu option that will access the DOB and Previous Call Databases and the registered version displays the License Class in addition to all the other info. These databases are posted on the Lehigh FTP Server as mentioned further below.
NOTE: Recently the converted FCC Database has been posted on the Lehigh.EDU FTP server and can be downloaded there if you don't want to download the "raw" database and convert yourself. There is a link to this site at the 1010 International Net Home Page at http://www.Lehigh.EDU/lists/tenten-l/ under the "10 Meter Operating Aids" heading. Also at this site is the Canadian Amateur Database which search support has recently been added to this program. The Canadian database is updated monthly whereas the FCC database is updated weekly. I personally prefer to use a dedicated FTP program such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP and download directly from the FTP server. If you use a FTP program then log onto ftp.lehigh.edu and go to the /pub/listserv/tenten-l/callsign/ directory. This method also gives you the file sizes and dates and you can que up multiple files for downloading.
There is a FCC one day update file included in the download package that will allow you to run the convert and search program without actually downloading anything from the FTP site. This will give you an idea of how the program works.
The basic Conversion & Search Program is Freeware, however, by registering the program you will receive an user_id file that will unlock several additional display features. The enhanced display includes the Date of Birth, Age, County, Azimuth, License Class, Previous Call and mileage and bearing from the user. The user's latitude and longitude is in the user_id file but can be modified. The user_id file will be emailed upon receipt of the $10 registration fee. Version 1.6 and later also will convert the VE database that can be downloaded from the WWW. The converted VE Database can also be downloaded from the Lehigh FTP Server.
Future updates will be posted on this web page and can be freely downloaded.
K4HAV (Hardy Data Systems) also has other software available - please visit my Home Page for links.
Download FCC Amateur Database Search Program V1.92 with supporting files: Click here (549,758 bytes dated 2/11/98).
Updated Version 2.0 dated 1-13-2000 V If you have already downloaded an earlier version then you need only to download the FCC.EXE file (70Kbytes zipped). This is the revised DOS version that uses the new FCC format. It doesn't do any conversions which are now done in the new Windows version written after the FCC changed their format and location of the raw files. All FCC files are now located at http://hds.net/win1010dl.htm.