Ham Radio Forum

hamradio · Site Admin Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 46

Most radio stations are issued a Call Sign (also known as call letters) by the government that licenses or authorizes them. Call signs consist of a one or two letter/numeral prefix, a numeral, and an alphabetical suffix.

The different nations that authorize or license radio stations are assigned, by international agreement, a set of unique call sign prefixes to help identify where a station is located and under which national authority the station is operating. As a result, these prefixes can be a big aid in determining where a station you're hearing is located.

Call sign prefixes are not an infallible way to determine a station's location, however. A shipboard station will use the call letters assigned to it by its home nation regardless of where it is operating from. A nation's call sign allocations are also used for its territories and possessions, no matter how remote from the nation.