I was licensed in 1980 out of the Detroit office, and I'm kind of
attached to it, so even though it takes roughly a week to send my call
at a reasonable speed on CW, I keep it.
I know a fellow who was licensed in Pennsylvania (3 area) before moving
to Missouri (0 area). In the 1980's he would sometimes get stopped by
the cops for having an invalid license plate because in Missouri a
personalized license plate had a different color scheme than a callsign
license plate and many of the cops could only tell the difference
because of the zero with the slash through it on the callsign plates.
On 10/25/26 05:52, N6RAM--- via BVARC wrote:
I’m N6RAM for the initials vanity. I get asked about California quite
often.
*From:*BVARC <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Chris Medlin via
BVARC
*Sent:* Saturday, October 24, 2026 10:54 AM
*To:* BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB <[email protected]>
*Cc:* Chris Medlin <[email protected]>
*Subject:* [BVARC] Callsign districts
I was talking to some ham friends about this Worked All Stated map and
learned that they had never seen one before, so I thought maybe others
had also not seen it before, and I wanted to share with the overall
group with some history of call districts.
When a new callsign is issued, it is based on your QTH for what call
group the license comes from. Texas is in district 5. Florida is in 4,
Maine is in group 1. Prior to 1978, when you moved your permanent QTH
from one call district to another, you were required to get a new call
in that district. When you heard a 9 call, you automatically knew this
guy was likely in IL, IN, or WI unless he was mobile, etc. It also
gave you an idea which direction to swing your beam. Or how your
signal was propagating if you were using a vertical or wire.
In 1978, that rule was dropped and they let you keep your original
callsign as you moved around the country., I believe the districts
were divided by population density. As the decades have passed, the 4
district has pulled ahead of the 5 because of the big cities like
Atlanta, DC, and Miami. I believe we are currently in the later end of
KJ5 today, but the 4 call district is now in KR4.. They have already
been through all the KJs and the KQs, which indicates that when we get
through the KJ5s, we will move to KQ5.
The modern vanity call sign program started in 1996 and allows anyone
to get any callsign in their license callsign classification not in
use and not inside the 2-year expired grace period, from anywhere in
the country.
I encourage you to make your own decision on that. Some people get
vanity calls for various reasons, and some keep their original
callsign for the nostalgia or because everyone already knows them by
that callsign so why change…
Although you may be a native of Texas and decide to get a 6 call
because it’s the only one that has your initials available, but then
you may also get a lot of questions on the air asking when you moved
here from California. I believe Blake, one of our BVARC Board Members,
had this problem when he was first licensed and immediately applied
for a 6 vanity call.
You will also see that KP4 is reserved for Puerto Rico, KP2 is
reserved for the USVI, KL7 is only issued to Alaska and KH6 is Hawaii.
Also as an added bonus on this map are the Field Day sections, like
Western PA, North TX, and South FL.
I hope you learned something new today. The map is printable and
suitable for framing and could make a beautiful addition to your shack.
73 Chris AC5CM
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