Foundations of Amateur Radio

///////////////////////////////////////////
Brand New Callsign

Posted: 25 Jan 2019 07:34 PM PST


Foundations of Amateur Radio

Today I have a new callsign, it's exciting, special, kind of strange, to be
known as something other than VK6FLAB.

It's hard to overstate how much of your identity as a radio amateur is
linked to your callsign. It's a strange phenomenon to those who are not
amateurs, or who have only just joined the community and are still learning
to remember what callsign they have.

We think of callsigns as semi-permanent fixtures, but realistically they're
far from that. In your life as an amateur you'll operate many callsigns,
even if you never change your own. When you're operating the local
club-station, you'll use that callsign, or when you're participating in a
special event, say an activation of an island, or some remote DX station,
or when you get on air to make noise in another country.

Some stations use special contesting callsigns, either for speed, or to
commemorate another amateur. There are those who collect callsigns like
badges, others only ever register one and keep it for the rest of their
life.

There are provisions for applying for callsigns for short duty operation,
sometimes as little as 24 hours, to mark a significant event or activation.
For example, in 2013 we registered VI6PROF as a special callsign for the
then Chief Scientist of Western Australia, Professor Lyn Beazley, who used
that callsign for two hours after dinner during the annual conference held
in VK6 that year.

There are callsigns registered for marking the end of Polio, VI6POLIO, 100
years of the Wireless Institute of Australia VI100WIA. VK100MARCONI
commemorated the first direct wireless message from the UK to Australia.
There are callsigns registered for activating an island, like VK6WDI to
activate Woody Island between the 9th and the 12th of November 2012, or
VK6CHI for the Cheyene Island activation in 2007.

Special callsigns are a global phenomenon. The Straight Key Century Club
operates K3Y. K1A gets used by amateurs throughout the USA for many
different events, from Boy Scout camps through to the America Recycles Day,
from the Georgia QSO party to the ARRL Field Day. The 2012 Olympic Games in
the United Kingdom were celebrated with 2012L and 2012W callsigns. RG22RQ
was for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

As with anything rare, there's an active community that collects it. For
special callsigns, there are amateurs who collect by trying to make contact
with an elusive call, confirm their contact and receive a QSL Card to
decorate their shack with.

In Australia, three times a year, on Australia Day, the 26th of January, on
ANZAC Day, the 25th of April and on ITU Day, the 17th of May, a licensed
amateur gets a special callsign to commemorate those special days in the
calendar.

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia, marking the
anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Port
Jackson.

ANZAC Day is the national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand
that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who served and
died in all wars conflicts and peacekeeping operations. It's marked on the
anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli in 1915.

ITU Day is the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day,
commemorating the foundation of the International Telecommunications Union
on the 17th of May, 1865.

On each of these three dates, radio amateurs in Australia can replace their
VK prefix with AX and use their special new callsign on-air to make contact
anywhere around the world.

So, for now, I'm Onno AX6FLAB
This posting includes a media file:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/founda...teur-radio.mp3