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Call sign order

callsigns what do they mean and how are they created well I'm gonna take you through the process so please keep watching for more [Music] hi I'm Michael give a 9 DB era your host for ham-radio Q&A I'm gonna mission to inspire and educate the amateur radio community so if this is your first time watching please consider hitting that subscribe button while Ste asks the following question are all callsign 6 characters I have seen one that is four and was wondering what the rules are regarding letters and numbers well thanks for that question prospective hams and even new amateur radio operators experienced a bit of confusion when it comes to call signs there seems to be an endless variety and variability and for some they just don't make any sense at all but call signs are vital and once you are licensed they become your on-air identity so I'm going to talk a bit about call signs now in this video I'm going to talk about the call sign system in the US every country has an allotment of call sign prefixes and the method each country uses to assign their calls is different so for simplicity sake I'm going to concentrate on the United States even with that the subject is complex enough well in the US call signs are regulated by the FCC call signs are issued amateur radio operators through the sequential call sign system this means that there is a pool of call signs and when a new license is issued the FCC goes into the pool and assigns that license a sequential call sign so how are these call signs created well stepping back a bit we need to first look at the structure of a call sign an amateur radio call sign consists of three components the prefix the region number and the suffix looking at my callsign kb9 VBR you can see the three parts the prefix can be either one or two letters long the region is a number from 0 to 9 and the suffix can be 1 2 or 3 letters I have what's called a 2 by 3 call sign it contains a prefix of two letters and a suffix of three letters shorter call signs are called 1 by 2 2 1 by 3 2 by 1 or 2 by 2 depending on their combination of prefix and suffix no letters the call sign structure can define the licensed class of the radio amateur shorter call signs are held by higher level operators like extra as our amateur advanced and longer call signs are typically held by technicians and Generals but this may not always be the case as when a person upgrades they may keep their original callsign for example I'm an extra class operator yet I'm still using my sequentially assigned callsign that I received more than 20 years ago but if I wish I could apply for a one by two or two by one vanity callsign so now you know the structure let's break down the parts well work backwards and talk about the suffix first this is the really easy part as it can be either one two or three letters along the length depends on the class the license was issued for when you take your test and receive your technician license you'll receive a two by three callsign the three letters of the suffix are issued in sequential order for example if you started at a a a the first license would have a suffix of a a a then the next a a B a AC etc etc when the FCC gets all the way through the sequence of suffix letters they will increment the second character in the prefix and then start all over again so my license kb9 VBR was issued in 1999 20 years later in callsign region 9 we're now up to KD 900 blank blank series next we'll move into the region number that's the number in the middle every amateur radio call sign has a number in it this number corresponds to the region in which the callsign was issued back in the early days of amateur radio and I'm talking like in the 19-teens the United States was broken down into call sign regions and I'll throw up a map here that shows where they're all located the number one is in North East number four in the southeast six in California and for some reason zero occupies a big portion of the central plains I received my license in Wisconsin so my callsign has a nine in it if I would have lived in Minnesota I could have received a zero call sign so you can see how where you live can affect the number you receive it used to be that when you moved into a new call sign region you would have to request a new call sign but that is no longer the case and you can keep your callsign when you move you can also request an Oda region callsign number or through the vanity license program but more on that in a bit you still with me good this is where it gets interesting with the prefix in the us call signs start with the letters k NW or a a through a L what prefix you have usually indicates either how or when your license was issued or what license class you hold for example in the early days of amateur radio call signs would systematically be issued with a W prefix and a three in the three-letter suffix as so long as the W calls were used up the FCC switched to the prefix K when the novice license class was created the 1950s new license holders would receive a novice call sign with a KN prefix when the upgraded generals the N was dropped and their 2 by 3 KN call sign was converted to a 1 by 3k callsign as the general license holders upgraded to extra they could receive a shorter one by 2 call sign so there was an incentive to upgrade as one of the perks was a shorter call sign but this method was unsustainable as the amateur radio ranks grew in the FCC quickly ran out of call signs again when this happens the feds will issue a call sign from the next lower pool so as they ran out of one by three call signs they switched to two by three call signs with a W a and then eventually W be WC + w d prefix alright so far so good but to make things interesting in the early 1980s they switched again and started issuing call signs with the KA prefix this started about the same time as the volunteer examiner system was rolled out so I think it was a method to differentiate between licenses that were tested at an FCC office and those that tested with volunteer examiner's to make things even more confusing when the code free technician license came out in the late 1980s those individuals received a 1 by 3 call sign starting with n I believe this was done to differentiate between code free technicians and pree 1987 technicians which tested for morse code as part of receiving their license that pool quickly depleted and by the late 1990s they switched to two by three call signs starting again with k and that's where we are today systematically issued call signs have two characters starting with the prefix K now I didn't say anything about the prefixes a a through a L these haven't been issued systematically to new license holders but instead have been set aside for a mature extra class license holders like I mentioned earlier the pool of one by two and two by one call signs for extras had been quickly depleted so the FCC allowed extra class license holders to receive a two by one call sign starting with the letter A there is one more exception to the prefix madness and that has to do with the region's Alaska Puerto Rico and US Caribbean areas in Hawaii and the US Pacific Islands since there is no region number for those areas the region number map was created long before Alaska and Hawaii became States Alaskan call sign holders could receive a prefix with a KL n l WL or a L Puerto Rican and Caribbean hams K P NP or WP and Hawaiian and the US Pacific territories get a h KH n H or WH one of the perks of living in those states is that you'll receive a very distinctive sounding callsign and I can guarantee that it'll be a conversation starter if you identify on the local repeater with one of those now I hinted at this and if you don't like your systemic call sign you can change it for example if you upgrade your license you can request you can either you can also request a new systemic callsign based on the pool or you can go out and get yourself a vanity call sign the vanity call sign program started in the mid-1990s it's open to all amateur radio operators and it gives a hams the ability to pick their own distinctive call sign based on a structure that is available that is available to them technicians could request a 1 by 3 call sign extras 2 by 2 2 by 1 or 1 by 2 the vanity program makes it easy if you want to get a call sign that was held by a relative that passed away or to pick up a call sign based on your initials or say you have a call sign as stuff to say over the air and you want something more comprehensible or distinctive the vanity program then is for you I'll put a link to the program in the description below and finally international call signs each country has their own set of prefixes some are easy to identify over the air and others are quite difficult that's why prefix chart comes in quite handy if you're chasing DX what do you have any questions or comments on call signs I'd love to hear them so please leave a comment below I'll filter through them and add to the conversation know know what your question might even show up on our next your questions answered video but for more articles and information be sure to check out my blog at WWF antenna comm the support of this channel drives the production of future videos so if you liked this video give it a big thumbs up and also check out some of the recommended videos alongside here and don't forget to hit that subscribe button pressing subscribe is your way to be notified when a new video is released oh I'm Michael give a 9 V beer have a great day and 73 [Music]