Ofcom makes ham radio G5 plus 3 letter calls available The UK regulator Ofcom has recently started issuing G5 + 3 letter callsigns to radio amateurs In the last century, from 1966 until 1981, G5 + 3 letter calls were issued to foreign citizens as Reciprocal licences: G5AAA-G5DZZ were used for Class A's and permitted operation on HF bands G5NAA-G5ZZZ were used for Class B's and permitted operation on 144 MHz and above From 1981 reciprocal callsigns no longer had a separate Prefix, instead they were issued from the standard Class A (G4) and Class B (G6) call blocks. In this century Ofcom has, when requested, reissued a few of the old G5+3 letter callsigns to their previous holders, but recently Ofcom have started issuing new calls from the G5 block. One of the beneficiaries has been the G-QRP Club, which is devoted to Low Power operation. That club now have the callsign G5LOW, see http://www.gqrp.com/callsign.htm It has been reported on Twitter that an Intermediate holder who passed their RSGB Advanced in December has now got a G5 callsign https://twitter.com/M0TZR/status/1077240135027183621 http://www.southgatearc.org/news/20...am-radio-g5-plus-3-letter-calls-available.htm
Apparently they have also issued a few M5 + 2 letter callsigns. For example, M5ET and M5SB are now listed on QRZ.com. Does anyone know what special status these callsigns carry, and how does one obtain such a callsign? Walt (G3NYY)
Ofcom told me any unallocated G# or M# Callsigns are available provided you send a written request. I’m not sure there is anything recent about it.
I think this is a great idea and will help raise interest in ham radio. I know when I got my vanity call sign I was very happy to have a shorter call sign.
Help me understand .. W2CSI a Vanity call sign? A shorter call sign? What am i missing here? I was very happy when i received my Vanity call SE3X insted of my personal SA3BYC . Not trying to be funny or mean. I'm just trying to learn and understand your system if such a call, W2CSI, is a Vanity?
"Vanity" call sign in the USA just means self-selected as opposed to sequentially assigned by the government when you passed the exams.
Hey Walt, Nothing special was required - I passed my advanced exam just like any other full licencee in the UK has to do these days, and applied for my callsign. It's a full licence callsign with all the privileges anyone else who passes their Advanced licence in the UK will get, carries the same CEPT status as any other, and when I passed my exam, I was issued the same HAREC that any UK full licencee gets. For the record, we believe mine was the first M5+2 issued. I know M5SB is a club callsign (which carries different requirements), but again, that was applied for the same way any UK club applies for a callsign, and carries the same UK club callsign privileges as any other club callsign (for example G2DX and M0AAA). Hope you catch you on the bands some time... 73, John (M5ET)
If I had to guess, he might be a Crime Scene Investigator (an abbreviation made famous through a television series seen in the USA, called CSI. It is aired over a major over-the-air (equivalent to Freeview) network in the USA). My own call was acquired through the vanity callsign program, though it has no meaning pertaining to my own name. One can only obtain a four-character call in the USA only by using the vanity program. In my case, I came to dislike my sequentially assigned KD8EN call. On phone, people misheard the "D", the "E", or the "N". On code, people accustomed to working hams with 2x3 call signs repeatedly asked for the nonexistent third letter of my suffix. N8NU sounds great on CW or Phone.
Hi John, Thank you so much for taking the trouble to reply. Very interesting. So I take it that you didn't specially ask for the two-letter call ... it was just issued to you by Ofcom as a matter of course. Congratulations on getting your Full Licence ... well done! I hope you will have many years of pleasure from our great hobby. I have held the callsign G3NYY for 59 years, so I won't be changing it now ... hi hi! Yes, I'll certainly give you a call if I hear you on the air. I heard M5SB on 20m FT8 a few days ago, but didn't realise it was a club call. Interestingly, as it's a club station the operator of M5SB would also be allowed to use the callsign "MX5SB" if he wished. 73 and a Happy New Year, Walt (G3NYY)
My guess as well that he might be a CSI. Yes we have that series as well. But being law enforcment or close you normally wouldn't like to disclose that IMHO. Anyway, to me your short call is what I would think is worth paying for to replace a 3 xxx suffix call. Hard to see the point in changing a 3 xxx for another 3 xxx if not crazy in some way? Maybe if I once was given SA3III, my personal is SA3BYC, would hate tripple I on CW HNY and 73 Johan
Hi Walt, Yes, I did specifically ask for it - the current automatically allocated series in the UK is still M0XXX, but once I had asked for M5ET, OFCOM approved the request and issued it to me. Thanks for the congratulations - I've already gained a lot of knowledge, experience, skills and friendships through amateur radio over the last six years, but my biggest focus is sharing the hobby with others, and especially young people. You are indeed correct, that Stewart and his friends would be able to use MX5SB, and I believe they intend to do exactly that for any contests where prefixes are important. Interestingly if they were to travel to Scotland, they would be entitled to use MS5SB as well, but both the X and S are optional modifiers, so under normal use, I suspect they'll stick to M5SB so that they can keep it short and snappy. 73, John (M5ET)
When I first got my license in 1992 I was a Tech class with which I had no HF privileges. I then passed the 5 word per minute code and became a Tech plus which let me operate on 10 meters. My original call sign was KD4TVB and I had a lot of fun working stations on 10 meters. In 2014 I applied to get a vanity call sign to drop one letter from my call sign and got W2CSI. I am a big fan of the CSI shows. When you apply for a vanity here you can list one to 15 options and the FCC picks which one you get. W2CSI was six one the list of call sign I had listed on my application for the vanity call sign. so then I decided to study for my General class and passed. I hope to work you on the bands in 2019.
The first thing I did after getting back into the hobby and getting re-licensed was apply for my original Novice callsign (KA2ESK) as a vanity call. I held on to it until I was granted the 1x2 that I have now (which amused a friend of mine -- seeing an old Novice call as an Amateur Extra)
