In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article . net, "KØHB"
writes:

One of those petitions asked that they
allow amateurs to retain their calls when moving because many hams had
become 'connected' to their call signs, almost as a 'name', and did not
wish to surrender the call when moving. Finding no regulatory,
enforcement, nor "good operating practice" reason that a ham shouldn't
keep their callsign, they ruled in favor of the petitioner.

Yep.

There's also another factor: availability of callsigns in the new area.

This is a more restrictive issue than most realize. There are only 2028
possible 1x2 callsigns and only 2028 possible 2x1 callsigns in each
district. As of this point in time, most districts have none available for
sequential issue and only a few available for vanity calls.

If hams were required to change callsigns when moving across district lines,
It's highly probable that there would usually be *no* 1x2s or 2x1s available in
most districts, because they'd all be tied up by current holders or in the 2
year period.

Even the 1x3s, of which there are 52,728 possible combinations per district,
are no longer available for sequential issue.

The "no longer available for sequential issue" thing is, I think, due solely to
an FCC decision. IIRC, their computers are not set up to do it. Yet.

Besides, it generates vanity revenue.

Actually the number of callsigns is slightly smaller since there are certain
suffixes that for various reasons are not made available for the general ham
population.

Exactly.

There was a time, back when the ARS was much smaller, that FCC would try
to
give "corresponding" calls when someone moved. W1ICP was W0ICP, for
example.
But that became "impractical".

I got N2EY (sequentially issued) when I moved from EPA to WNY in 1977. By
the
time I moved back (1979), the FCC was not reissuing "abandoned" 1x2 calls.
Something about their computer system.

What it meant in my case was that if I'd asked for a 3-land call, I could
have
gotten a sequentially-issued 3-land 1x2. But N2EY would not have been
reissued
to anyone. So there would be one less Extra with a 1x2, and I decided to
keep N2EY.

Did I do the wrong thing?

Absolutely not IMHO. I've moved several times: from 8 land to 9 land to 0
land and back to 8 land. It would make no sense to me to keep changing my
call sign. And if one were restricted to sequentially issued calls, all
that was available by the time I moved into each of these areas were the
2x2s beginning with A. I don't happen to like them.

If everyone had to change with every move, even those would probably be all
tied up.

If you have internet access in the shack, you could look up a callsign
heard
and see what state the ham is in. Not a new idea, though - there used to
be
this thing called a "callbook"

73 de Jim, N2EY

Don't need internet access even today. There are callbooks available on CD
ROM for a non-internet connected computer.

My point was simply that even thr Ancient Ones in the BPC times had ways of
finding the rare states.

Besides that, what's wrong with
just asking the guy (or gal)?

Ya gotta work him first.

In addition, if one is hunting states for WAS
or whatever, monitor the contests that include section as part of the report
and jump in when you find one. Or call CQ specifically for the states of
interest.

I've found that in CW SS, section-hunting is usually (not always) a waste of
time. Except for the very rare/difficult ones (NT, NL, AK, PAC [from EPA]),
I've found that simply working everything you can hear will get you 70+
sections. Getting the really rare ones is a different game, of course, but
relatively few are "really rare".
And the rare ones are often easily found by the size of the pileup on them.

In SS 2004, the Type 7 and I worked all states except Hawaii. 100 homebrew
watts, inverted V at 37 feet, paper logs and a bug.

73 de Jim, N2EY