My Callsign’s History
The fourth weekly assignment of the 2025 Ham Radio Challenge is to research the history of your callsign, so that’s what I did. Here’s what I found.
The “W” 1×3 callsigns are among the earliest ever issued in America. After the US started licensing amateur radio stations in 1912, 3-character callsigns were used. They were made up of a call area digit (1–9) followed by two letters.[1] Later, when the two-letter suffixes were exhausted, three-letter suffixes were used.
After the first International Radiotelegraph Conference of 1927 established callsign prefixes for each country, most US hams began using the “W” prefix and the 1×2 and 1×3 call signs that we’re familiar with today were born.[2]
I looked through some old callbooks on the Internet Archive and found that my callsign has been issued previously to two other hams before me:
| Period (approx) | Name | QTH |
|---|---|---|
| 1934 – 1937 | Joseph Grishkin | Vestaburg, PA |
| 1953 – 1993 | Donald Brosseau | La Salle, MI (and later Blue Springs, MO) |
| 1997 – 2025 | Michael Burkhardt (that’s me!) | Columbus, OH |
I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life (so far) and have always had a callsign from the eighth call area. It seems strange to contemplate having any other number!
Because they are among the oldest callsign formats (and because I actually knew some of the old-timers who were original holders of those calls) I’ve always had a nostalgic fondness for the “W” 1×3s. That is why I jumped at the chance to get one back in the 1990s when vanity callsigns became available.[3] I didn’t have my Extra class license yet back then, otherwise I might have tried to get a 1×2.