Yep. Cops have been known to mis-understand ham plates... WB6GSO was stopped frequently when he had a 1981 Suburban with the 1950s-1960s black characters on yellow background series (the so-called "bumblebee" plates). They were issued previous to the 1960s-1970s yellow-on-black series. He was really pissed when the plates were stolen off of his old CHP car and he was issued replacements in the current colors at that time (yellow-on-black). As far as I know he still has the yellow-on-black plates on the 81 Suburban, currently at over 976,000 miles.
Back in 1991 there was a usenet comment thread in the computer-risks digest on running ham radio license plates on DMV computers. My posting to it is here: <http://groups.google.com/group/comp.risks/browse_thread/thread/2cc5fefb628c6cf7> More below... Mike WA6ILQ At 12:59 PM 09/27/07, you wrote: >Similar tale here in southern CA. A ham friend has had call sign plates >since they first came out here, so he haqs the old orangr letters on black >background plates that are probably 30 years old. Ham plates were issued on the previous series black on gold plates and possibly on the ones before that. I have a photo somewhere of W6AM's 1950s Cadillac Eldorado with a 1kw HF dynamotor powered mobile (extra batteries in the trunk)... and he had black on gold W6AM plates. As he drove down the road he used to run 45-50wpm CW with a Vibroplex bug strapped to his right leg. And remember, this was in three-on-the-tree stick shift days... >He's been stopped many >times when a cop got suspicious about such old plates on a car only a >couple of years old, so my friend got a new set of plates. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: sanleontexas >To: [email protected] >Sent: 27 September, 2007 09:56 >Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Call letter plates > >Don't pity the 'poor cops' too much. A week or two ago my friend Paul, >W0AIH, who has been a Wisconsin resident for many years and has call >letter plates with his callsign on all of his vehicles, was driving to >another town in Wisconsin and was stopped by a local cop who 'just >didn't think that license number looked right'. Apparently he had >never heard of ham radio and wasn't aware of call letter plates.
