Hello,
Thought I'd introduce myself.
I have taken over for as the regional IP coordinator for Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula (44.092/16).
I wrote a script to help identify expired callsigns, and have since removed those entries for my area. This script my be handy to other coordinators:
I made all attempts to not delete any active domains. If anyone is experiencing a problem please contact me.
Steve Lampereur, KB9MWR
kb9mwr@gmail.com wrote:
I wrote a script to help identify expired callsigns, and have since removed those entries for my area. This script my be handy to other coordinators:
I tried such a script some time ago, but I ran into the problem that the regulatory authority now allows people to change their callsign at any time, and publishes no records of those changes. When I lookup someone by their old callsign, it just says "Expired" and there is no indication that the same person now has another callsign. This made me reluctant to delete address assignments based on that lookup.
Maybe it is different in the USA?
Rob
On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:14:33 +0200, Rob Janssen pe1chl@amsat.org wrote:
When I lookup someone by their old callsign, it just says "Expired" and there is no indication that the same person now has another callsign. This made me reluctant to delete address assignments based on that lookup.
But if the call sign is expired should a reference to it be maintained in the ampr.org DNS? I'd be inclined to purge expired call signs rather than let an invalid reference remain in the database.
Geoff Joy wrote:
When I lookup someone by their old callsign, it just says "Expired" and there is no indication that the same person now has another callsign. This made me reluctant to delete address assignments based on that lookup.
But if the call sign is expired should a reference to it be maintained in the ampr.org DNS? I'd be inclined to purge expired call signs rather than let an invalid reference remain in the database.
When someone notifies me of their changed callsign (or I happen to read or hear about it) I add the new callsign as the first item on the hosts file line, keeping the old callsign as a second name. E.g.:
44.137.0.25 pa7rp pa3bba # ruud
When the info is sent to the ampr.org DNS robot, an entry like this is sent as:
pa7rp IN A 44.137.0.25 pa3bba IN CNAME pa7rp
This way, the old callsign can still be looked up and will point to the same station as the new one.
Just deleting all the expired calls will mean that info about the addresses they have is lost, and when I finally receive the message about callsign change it has to be found from archives. When there would be a way to get the callsign changes from an authoritative source, I would just apply all changes in the manner shown above and delete all expired calls for which there is no new assignment.
Rob
On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:01:56 -0500, kb9mwr@gmail.com wrote:
I wrote a script to help identify expired callsigns, and have since removed those entries for my area. This script my be handy to other coordinators:
I like it. I tried it for my region and came up with a rather long list of expired callsigns. A large number of them aren't even listed in the QRZ or the callook.info databases anymore.
The only problem I see is the cut-off date for the expirations. The grace period under Part 97.21(b) is 2 years, so while they can't operate while expired, they can get their callsign back, so deleting it from the ampr.org DNS before the grace period is expired might mean more work re-entering it if they renew. As you say, hand checking the results is definitely in order.
-
Geoff Joy -
kb9mwr＠gmail.com -
Rob Janssen