Call Letters Meaning on Wikipedia

[Bob DeMattia]

Ham Radio callsigns have few geographics restrictions.  Callsigns can begin
in A, K, N, or W regardless of their location.
The digit has some meaning with  sequentially assigned callsigns where the
digit is assigned by one of ten areas:

1 - The New England States
2 - NY/NJ
3 - PA/MD/DE
and so on.

There are also a few special prefixes like KH6 for Hawaii. KL7 for Alaska,
and some others for American Samon,
Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, etc.

However, people who request vanity callsigns can choose almost any prefix
and digit that they want.


Bob - K1IW


On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 7:22 PM Bob Nelson <raccoonradio@gmail.com> wrote:

> Isn't ham radio the opposite of traditional broadcast...those west of the
> Mississippi start with W and those east start with K (KA1ABC for example?)
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 3:33 PM Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > My understanding is that the first call signs adssigned to radio stations
> > were military, and began with A for Army and N for Navy. These stations
> > were not broadcasters and used Morse code, in which A = didah and N =
> > dahdit.
> >
> > When additional call signs needed to be assigned, somone had the idea of
> > adding an extra dash to the prefixes: didahdah = W, dahdidah = K. After
> > the war (World War I), when the alphabet was divided among various
> > countries for call sign allocation, the U.S. claimed A, N, K, and W (the
> > British got G, M, V, and Z).
> >
> > Today the U.S. still has N, K, W, and AA through (AL? I forget). All four
> > are used for ham radio call signs, but only K and W are used for
> > broadcasting stations.
> >
> >
> > Rob
> >
> > On Wed, 12 Jun 2019, A. Joseph Ross wrote:
> >
> > > My father thought the W stood for Washington.  When I saw that some
> > stations'
> > > call letters started with K, I asked him, and he said it stood for
> > > California.
> >
>