Types of Call-Signs
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CONVENTIONAL BROADCAST CALL-SIGN
KDKA LKA Z2AB T3K 3AM 9RLV
This is the most common form of call-sign. The 3-letter
format dominates in Europe while the 4-letter format dominates in the
Americas. Some countries allow even longer call-signs such as XEABC
Mexico City, TIRSCLCH Los Chiles, Costa Rica, etc. In some countries,
letter-number or number-letter prefixes also exist.
The call sign consists of the ITU-assigned country prefix followed by a
unique set of letters. In the main examples above : K-DKA, LK-A, Z2-AB,
T3-K, 3A-M and 9R-LV. In many cases the additional letters have
meaning, in other cases they don't. For government stations, the
additional letters assigned were often abbreviations for cities, such
as OKP Prague and OKB Brno, Czechoslovakia or 9RLV Leopoldville, Congo. For commercial stations, the additional letters were often company abbreviations, such as WBEN
Buffalo, USA for the Buffalo Evening News newspaper. In some countries,
the 3rd letter can indicate the region within the country; for example
in CMEA Santa Clara, Cuba, the E indicates Villa Clara Province.
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AMATEUR FORMAT CALL-SIGN
VL2AB G2LO VQ7LO I2RO CR6RA
This format was adopted by many countries for their broadcast
stations and is the same one assigned to amateur radio stations. The
number following the prefix usually indicates the region within the
country (although in the Italian I2RO example, the 2 indicates the 2nd
gov't station in Rome). Since these call-signs tended to be more
cumbersome to use over the airwaves versus simple 3 or 4-letter calls,
they were often truncated, leaving the first one or two letters off.
For instance, in the first few examples "2AB" "2LO"
"7LO" and "2RO" were used over the air in lieu of the full
official call-sign. Because of this practice and because of the lack of
access to official publications in the early days of radio, DXers have often made
the assumption that these truncated call-signs were the actual official
ones.
Over time, some countries such as Australia *have* actually made the
truncated calls the official ones, at least in the mediumwave band. It
is encouraged to continue using the fully prefixed call for international MW DX
reports, even though the previously "de facto" calls are now "de jure".
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TRANSPOSED AMATEUR FORMAT CALL-SIGN
HCAB2 OAX2A
The HC series used in Ecuador for radio stations is a variation
of the amateur service format where characters are transposed. Rather
than HC2AB, for example, the call-sign appears as HCAB2. The OA series
used in Peru is another example, where OA2XA becomes OAX2A.
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FIXED SERVICE FORMAT CALL-SIGN
LRF234 ZYA567
This format has been adopted by a few countries and is the same
one assigned to fixed service (point-to-point) radio stations. Often,
the 3rd letter signifies a region of the country.
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SEQUENTIAL CALL-SIGN
CSA2 EAJ34 RW567
This format consists of a group of letters followed by a number,
usually starting with 1 or 20 and advancing sequentially with each new
station assigned. In some countries, this group of letters is simply an
ITU prefix, while in others it may be letters assigned to a particular
region, type of licence or radio company. Sequential call-signs were
first adopted by Switzerland, with HB1 Geneva and HB2 Lausanne as the
first two licensed stations. Switzerland later abandoned this format.
Today, Russia is the biggest user with its RW stations.
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FREQUENCY CALL-SIGN
CD56 4QQ218 DMQ-6 HCEE2
This format includes abbreviated frequency information within
the call sign. In the first two examples above, 560 kHz and 21.8 MHz
are the frequencies of the stations with these call-signs, while DMQ-6
is in the 6 MHz band. In the HCEE2 example, this is a TV station in
Ecuador operating on channel 2.
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CODED BAND CALL-SIGN
OLR-2A OEI-34
This format includes coded band information within
the call sign. In the first examples, the primary call-sign is OLR, the
2 indicates the
shortwave band (2 = 49 metres, 3 = 31 metres, 4 = 25 metres, etc.),
while the A is the sequential assignment within that band. In the 2nd
example, OEI is the primary call-sign, the 3 indicates the band (2 = 49
metres, 3 = 41 metres, 4 = 31 metres, etc.), while the 4 is the
sequential assignment within that band.
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POWER CALL-SIGN
HV2 HV5 HV100
This format is used in Vatican City on MW. The numeral indicates
the power of the transmitter in kW. HV2 = 2 kW, HV5 = 5 kW and HV100 =
100 kW. (Of note, the powers of HV2 and HV100 have increased since the call-signs
were assigned.)
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SUFFIXED CALL-SIGN
VUA2 CD55A CBF-1
A numerical suffix can either indicate an additional station in
the call-sign series (example : VUA Ahmadabad, VUA2 Amritsar, VUA3
Allahabad, etc.), an additional station on the same frequency in the
frequency series ( CD55, CD55A, CD55B, etc.) or a relay station (CBF
Montreal, CBF-1 Senneterre, CBF-2 Mont-Brun, etc.). The numerically
suffixed call-sign appears similar to the sequential call-sign format,
however it is different due to the fact that it used for only a minority of
stations within a country rather than all of the
stations.
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OTHER NOTES
Many countries have changed call-sign formats over the years. The
Dominican Republic is one recent example, changing from the
conventional 4-letter call sign format to the sequential format, and then back again (due to broadcaster complaints).
Some countries, such as Canada, have used prefixes that belong to other
countries - assumedly with permission. In Canada's case, most
government radio stations begin with the prefix "CB", which is assigned
to and also used by Chile. As a result, there are duplicate call-signs
such as CBA Moncton and CBA Arica, CBV Quebec and CBV Valparaiso, etc.
Some countries, such as The Bahamas, continue to use old call-sign
prefixes that are no longer assigned to them. In this case, the prefix
"ZN", which is assigned to the British Colonies, a group to which The
Bahamas no longer belongs.
Psuedo "call-signs" that do not use the official ITU international
prefixes and instead are network abbreviations, such as "KBC" Kenya,
"BRT" Belgium, "RTM" Morocco, etc., are not included in the DX Info
Centre call-sign lists unless they are included in the
ITU's International Frequency List (IFL). The IFL used to flag these types of
calls with a ** symbol, indicating that they were an "identification"
rather than "call-sign". This is no longer done in the IFL, but some
national frequency lists, such as the Canadian one, continue to use
this methodology when listing things such as beacon
"identifications" in lieu of call-signs. There are a few exceptions for
countries whose official call-signs are a mix of traditional and
psuedo-type call signs. Spain is an example, with "RNE" being assigned
to government stations.
The ITU maintains 27.5 MHz as a division between international and
national frequency assignments. Therefore, we recommend
the acceptance of non-standard or truncated ITU prefixes (such as
Australia's) as the dx call-signs for broadcast stations above 27.5
MHz. The vast majority of the world's stations above 27.5 MHz are not
assigned call signs using the international call sign series, but
rather use national conventions that vary from country to country. So,
2ABCRR (rather than VL2ABCRR) and ABNQ in Australia are perfectly acceptable - and for a large
portion of the world's VHF stations, no call-signs are assigned whatsoever.
RW or RV ?
Lists of Russian stations will often swap between RW and RV for the call-sign prefix. Which is correct?
If you transliterate from Cyrillic to Latin using the ISO 9 standard,
the Cyrillic PB becomes RV in English. There are no Cyrillic letters
that transliterate as W. However in German and Polish, PB
does transliterate as RW.
One question we must ask is which character set is the original
call-sign assigned in - Cyrillic or Latin? One would assume Cyrillic -
however we know that the ITU uses the Latin alphabet exclusively for
its call-sign allocations, so are the call-signs assigned using Latin
characters only? Is RW in fact transliterated as PB rather than
the other way around?
To break this deadlock, I have decided to let the ITU decide. In the
IFL, the ITU uses RW as the prefix for Russian stations, although RV is
used in some of the former Soviet republics. The ITU version is the one
that I will consider official and is the one that you will see in use here.
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