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HamRad, I got REAL lucky. The documentation said within 6 months of past renewal and one will be charged a fee and it had been over 1.5 years since my last renewal, but the dude at the window was so surprised someone actually took the time to achieve the endorsement I think he forgot to charge me for it. It would have been a nominal fee ($15?), but any time you don't have to pay a fee in California is a good thing. This DMV office was familiar with this endorsement process, but you are right, others I've been too and asked about this looked at me like I had three eyeballs. Most CHPs don't know about this too.
My brother used to work for the main CHP office in Sacramento and what he told me is that he thinks the specialty license requirements are only known by the special officers trained to look for these types of infractions. Apparently, there's a whole bunch of other training for these officers after they finish their basic training so this information is not known by the majority of officers unless they learn it for themselves. I also found that there is now a single officer in my city that is now trained to look for these RV and CDL requirements. He made the news and has been VERY busy! Now I'm glad I have my endorsement and I am fully compliant.
The only bad news is that prior license pictures for my renewals always used the old picture from years ago and with this new license they had to take a new one. When I got this new license with the endorsement and the new picture, wow, I've gotten old and ugly! Oh well, the only difference is that I used to be young and ugly.
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