CQ

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Matt Attallah

MI KD2MAA

I can make up numbers/letters to...

Mind filling us non-ham radio people in on what these letters/digets mean?

Matt,
The letters do not mean as much as they used to. W was assigned to stations east of the Mississippi and K to stations west. This still holds true for commercial stations, (i.e. radio and TV) N was used for all Novice stations, and A for all advanced operators but that was dropped many years ago.
The number refers to a particular part of the country, 9 being IL, WI, IN. Letters early in the alphabet indicate that the call sign was assigned a long time ago. When the FCC started running into problems with this system they had to make some changes. So although you would think that by looking at my call WB9UVJ and Greg's KB9WTE that we were not very far apart in licensing. However, the FCC went from WB to WD (skipping WC for obvious reasons) before starting over with KA calls. So just estimating, I received my call in the late 70's, so I would guess that Greg has had his call for many years, probably mid 90's. Both our call signs are known as 2x3 meaning 2 prefix and three suffix letters. The FCC began issuing 1x2 calls and then 2x1 and 2x2 calls for some hams who renewing or receiving advances licenses. i.e. N1PP and AA7A NA9RP. It is all so confusing. Other calls than those mentioned above indicate the hams are from other countries. VE calls from Canada, IT from Italy etc. Small countries have unusual calls that are rarely heard so hams listen intently for odd country signs to try and communicate with special ham operators. King Hussein of Jordan (before his death) was a huge ham operator. I was lucky to hear him one night before he had to close down. Everyone was trying to contact him.