Amateur radio call signs

[1] The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) allocates call sign prefixes for radio and television stations of all types.

Since 1927 these have been used to uniquely identify operators and locate amateur stations within a geographical region or country of the world.

[2] Prefixes are assigned internationally, and a separating numeral plus suffix are added by a national body to produce this unique identifier.

In some countries, an operator may also select their own "vanity" call sign that conforms to local laws.

[5] Examples of call signs and their constituent parts are as follows: Call signs begin with a one- two- or three-character prefix chosen from a range assigned by the ITU to the amateur's country of operation or other internationally recognized jurisdiction.

An individual operator is assigned a unique call sign beginning with this prefix and then completed with a separating numeral and suffix.

In general an amateur radio callsign is of one of these forms where: Call signs almost always have one of the following forms: Since suffixes can also contain digits, some countries issue suffixes (usually temporarily) beginning with enough digits to produce a number, usually associated with the special event (for example the number of years, see New Zealand below).

An example is A33A, a Tongan call sign; the first '3' is the second character of the prefix and the second '3' is the numeral separating 'A3' from the single-letter suffix 'A'.

A New Zealand amateur who has been active for 30 years and currently is assigned call sign ZL1xxx can operate as ZL30xxx for up to three months.

The New Zealand operator substitutes their identifying separating numeral with another, so long as a second digit is added to the beginning of their normal suffix.

This may result in call sign confusion in the rare case of two amateurs in differing numeral-areas also both having the same number of years of operation and suffix.

For instance GB75RD was a special event sign for the 75th anniversary of the Reading and District Amateur radio club.

An example occurred in 1987 when the "200" was used in place of district numbers for the many stations that celebrated the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.

Letter combinations which can be confused with distress calls or which are reserved as abbreviations for radiocommunications services are excluded (e.g. Q codes).

For instance, an amateur from British Columbia (VE7 in Canada) operating in Washington State (K7 in the USA) would amend their home-call with a trailing /K7 (e.g. VE7xxx becomes VE7xxx/K7).

Some jurisdictions discourage this practice on the grounds that it could be confused with an amateur from the repeater's location working portable in Russia.

Some beacon stations use the self-assigned secondary suffix /B; however, as this is the ITU prefix for China, it is not authorized.

Any call sign used by an amateur in these unassigned block ranges usually had it assigned to them by a group with an unrecognized national claim.

[22] In addition, during their period of independence from the Republic of South Africa, which lasted in some cases from 1976 to 1994, the Bantustans had prefixes not recognized by the international community.

These were: Amateur radio call sign prefixes almost always locate an operator within one of the 300+ DXCC entities in the world.

The DXCC List is based upon Clinton B. DeSoto's landmark 1935 QST article defining a "country" as a discrete geographical entity.

Some request callsigns which reflect specific interests or modes of operation (such as VE3QRP for a low-power radio club in Ontario).

[38] The Battleship USS Missouri has the call sign KH6BB; VO1TAP is a callsign belonging to the Grassroots Amateur Radio Club, commemorates the anniversary of the USS Truxtun and USS Pollux Naval disaster off the coast of Newfoundland; VO1MCE the callsign of the Irish Loop Amateur Radio Club at the Myrick Wireless Interpretation Centre in Newfoundland, commemorates Cape Race Marconi station MCE as the first point of radio contact in the New World for Titanic.

Occasionally, a radio club will obtain a shorter callsign for a day; the U.S. FCC issues calls as short as 1 × 1 (with "K1D" being a popular choice) for individual events.

[40] A well-known short callsign is JY1, which belonged to Hussein of Jordan, who served as that nation's king.