US Amateur Radio Call Signs
Most call signs in the US are assigned by the FCC.
All US call signs start with one of the letters A K N W (A is limited to AA-AL)
Amateur radio call signs are one or two letters, a digit, and one or three letters.
But there are additional rules that are not well published and not published all in one spot.
Amateur Radio Callsigns[edit | edit source]
Special event call signs[edit | edit source]
1x1 calls (1 letter, 1 digit, 1 letter) can be preregistered for use during special events. See https://www.1x1callsigns.org/
FCC Reserved call sign suffixes[edit | edit source]
You may suffix your call sign with / and some letters, but they must conform to the country code prefixes (in other words, start with AKNW) but not reserved suffixes which have special meaning: [1] §97.119(c)
| /AA | |
| /AG | new general upgrade |
| /AE | new extra upgrade |
| /KT |
Reserved and restricted calls[edit | edit source]
For the following, ? represents a letter, # represents a digit.
Restricted suffixes:
- The 1x1 calls matching ?#x
- SOS
- QRA-QUZ
- ??#x?? : Suffixes with X as the first letter of 3 with 2 letter prefixes
- ?F#EMA are reserve for FEMA
Restricted prefixes:
- KA2??-KA9??
- KC4AAA-KC4AAF
- KC4USA-KC4USZ
- KG4??
- KC6??
- KL9KA?-KL9KH? (Alaska?)
- KX6??
- AM-AZ are assigned to other countries
- AA-AL with 3 letter suffix
- NA-NZ with 3 letter suffix
- WC, WK, WM, WR, or WT with 3 letter suffix (group X call signs)
- WR is reserved for the repeater license system (which no longer exists)
- WC is reserved for RACES stations
- KP, NP, and WP with 0, 6-9 are geographically reserved (see below)
Restricted by license[edit | edit source]
- Extra licenses can have calls in group A B C D
- Advanced licenses can have calls in group B C D
- General and Technician can have calls in group C D
- Novice can have calls only in group D
- Group A (Extra)
- 1x2 2x1 calls
- A?#?? calls
- Group B (Advanced)
- 2x2 calls starting with K N W
- Group C (General, Technician)
- 1x3, 2x3 calls starting with K N W
- Group D (Novice, others)
- 2x3 starting with K or W
Geographically reserved prefixes[edit | edit source]
Calls with the second letter of L H P and certain region digits are restricted to calls issued in that region.
| ?H6 | Hawaii (Region 13) |
| ?H# | other Pacific Insular areas (Region 13) |
| ?L7 ?L# | Alaska (Region 11) |
| ?P3 ?P4 | Puerto Rico (Region 12) |
| ?P# (1,2,5) | other Caribbean Insular areas (Region 12) |
Lists of specific Caribbean and Pacific islands are listed on the FCC page in references.