Call signs of amateur radio stations. Scheme, description

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RADIO ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
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Call signs of amateur radio stations. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

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Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering / Beginner radio amateur

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Each radio station must have a call sign, or simply a call sign for short, by which it can be identified on the air. Callsigns for local (in particular, official) radio communications, in principle, can be arbitrary ("First, first - I'm second!", "Chamomile calls clover", etc.). But for service and amateur radio stations whose signals go beyond the borders of the country and which can establish radio contacts with radio stations in other countries, call signs must be assigned in accordance with international rules. The call sign system was developed by the International Telecommunication Union and provides non-repeating call signs for all radio stations in the world.

Under this system, call signs consist of several characters (letters and numbers). International agreements have determined the distribution among all countries of the world of combinations of the first three symbols of the call sign (prefix). This distribution is shown in the table and is used to form the call signs of both civil service radio stations and amateur radio stations. The communications administrations of the country (in Russia it is the State Radio Frequency Center), when issuing a permit to operate a radio station, assign it a call sign, adding to the prefix allocated for this country, several characters - the call sign suffix. The procedure for issuing callsigns established within each country excludes the repeated issuance of the same suffixes. As a result, the call sign is a unique combination of symbols - there is no second radio station with such a call sign in the world.

(click to enlarge)

Note that only letters of the Latin alphabet are used for callsigns, and callsign prefixes consisting of letters and numbers do not contain the numbers 1 and 0. The last provision is a historical incident. At a time when radio communication by telegraph prevailed, and radiograms were recorded by hand, these numbers were excluded from the call sign prefixes so that when deciphering the records, they would not be confused with letters of the Latin alphabet (I and O) similar in outline.

The international "Radio Regulations" contains recommendations for the formation of call signs for amateur radio stations. They must consist of the first two characters of a prefix from among the numbers assigned by the International Telecommunication Union to the given country and from one to three letters of the suffix, i.e. the number of characters in the amateur radio call sign should not exceed six. So, for example, the call signs of Russian radio stations can be from the blocks RA3A - RA3Z, RA3AA - RA3ZZ, RA3AAA - RA3ZZZ, etc.

Note that some countries (see table) are allocated full prefix blocks. Among them are Russia (RAA - RZZ), USA (WAA - WZZ, KAA - KZZ, NAA - NZZ), Great Britain (GAA - GZZ, MAA - MZZ), Italy (IAA - IZZ) and France (FAA - FZZ). In these countries, it is possible to issue call signs that have not two, but only one letter before the number, since in this case it is enough to unambiguously identify the radio station belonging to the corresponding countries. So the call sign of the collective radio station of the editorial office of the magazine "Radio" is R3R.

There is also a contradictory situation in the prefix distribution table - blocks of prefixes with the same first two characters are divided between two countries. These are blocks 3DA - 3DM (Swaziland) and 3DN - 3DZ (Fiji), as well as SSA - SSM (Egypt) and SSN - SSZ (Sudan). If the call signs of amateur radio stations in these countries are formed in accordance with the recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union, then there is no unambiguous identification of the country to which the radio station belongs. For Egypt and Sudan, the solution was simple. Egypt has another "normal" block (SUA - SUZ) and does not use characters from the SSA - SNZ block for amateur radio call signs. And Sudan, in turn, does not use symbols from the SSN - SSZ block for call signs of amateur radio stations, but issues them on the basis of the "normal" STA - STZ block allocated to it. The situation with Swaziland and Fiji is more complicated, since they have no other prefix blocks (other than those mentioned above). They had to agree among themselves and "share" among themselves the third character of the call signs - a number (3D2 - Fiji, 3D6 - Swaziland).

If callsign prefixes are determined by international agreements, then the procedure for using numbers and other symbols of callsigns is the exclusive right of the Communications Administration of the country. For this reason, in some countries these symbols carry an additional semantic load, and in some they are just another combination to form a new callsign.

Often, the call sign digit denotes the part of the country in which the radio station is located - the so-called "amateur radio area". This principle of formation of call signs of amateur radio stations is followed by many countries, including Russia. In some countries, the numbers alone or in combination with various prefixes denote different classes (categories) of amateur radio stations. There are countries where callsigns are issued simply in a row.

The letters included in the call sign suffix also sometimes (but much less often) carry a semantic load. So in Russia and some other countries, by the letters of the suffix, you can determine whether a given callsign belongs to a personal (individual) radio station or a radio station for collective use.

In some countries, the prefix of the call sign also carries additional information. For example, call signs with different prefixes are issued to radio stations of different classes (categories). Or they allocate prefixes for certain groups of radio stations (for example, for foreign radio amateurs operating from the territory of a given country).

As follows from the table, many countries of the world have been allocated more than one prefix. Usually, not all of them are used to issue regular call signs, keeping some of the prefixes in reserve and assigning call signs with such unusual (in the sense - not used in everyday practice) prefixes for special radio stations - anniversary memorials, etc.

Thus, the call sign of the radio station, which it must transmit every time it goes on the air, makes it possible to unambiguously determine the country whose Communications Administration issued a permit for the operation of this radio station, and the call signs of amateur radio stations often carry additional information. Most often, this will be information about in which part of the country the amateur radio station is located.

Author: B.Stepanov (RU3AX), Moscow

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