"Somebody Somewhere" wrote in message
...
On Oct 17, 10:14 pm, Somebody Somewhere wrote:
I'm hearing a beacon IDing as WE2XGR/6 on about 507 KHZ. Anyone know
where it's located and what's up with the unusual ID?

Never mind. A Google search reveals that it's a 200 watt ham radio
"lowfer" in Pen Yan, NY. Interesting!

Brenda Ann wrote:

That is interesting. Not the lowfer part, but the call. Generally, the call
would indicate a region 2 licensed station operating in region 6 (IIRC,
region 2 is the NY area, region 6 is California).

Brenda, here is the answer:

WE2XGR is an -experimental- license for 500 kHz ham transmissions.

The /2 or /6 designators do NOT indicate the ham call area as you would
normally expect. Rather, they indicate the number of the station using
that particular experimental call.

To explain further (and these are just examples, not real calls):

W1ABC (in the first call area) is the operator of WE2XGR/14

W7XYZ (in the seventh call area) is the operator of WE2XGR/9

To summarize, even though your real ham call might be W1ABC and you live
in New England (first call district), when you are operating on the 500
kHz band, you would use WE2XGR/x, NOT your usual call of W1ABC. The /x
designator just shows that you are one of "x" number of operators using
the experimental call, NOT that you are geographically in the "x" call
district.

One final REAL example: There IS a legitimate station using WE2XGR/17
and yet as we all know, there is no 17th call district. It just means he
was the 17th person to sign up to participate in the experiment.

Hope this helps.