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Old 28th Nov 2020, 4:26 pm   #1
saddlestone-man
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Default Early BBC station Call Signs

Hello All

In the call signs of the initial BBC stations, eg 2LO (London), 2BE (Belfast), 5IT Birmingham), 2ZY (Manchester), 5SC (Glasgow) etc, what was the significance of the number at the front?

There's a fuller list at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...g_Company#1923

best regards ... Stef
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Old 28th Nov 2020, 4:30 pm   #2
paulsherwin
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

Transmitter power?
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Old 28th Nov 2020, 5:56 pm   #3
Mr 1936
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

I believe that 2xx, 5xx and 6xx callsigns were allocated by the Postmaster General for radio amateurs, at a time when there was little distinction between amateur operation and broadcasting. The authorities probably considered both activities a frivolous use of the spectrum !

I can't find any logic between the use of 2, 5 or 6, all were in use more or less concurrently between 1920 and 1939. From 1923, G was optionally added in front of amateur calls, which would have been useful as a country identifier when international shortwave contacts began to take place. It formally became part of the callsign after WW2.

There is more information on early callsigns in a book by the amateur Jack Hum (G5UM), see: http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/g5umcallbook.pdf

Last edited by Mr 1936; 28th Nov 2020 at 6:12 pm.
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Old 28th Nov 2020, 6:54 pm   #4
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

In the later, wider international allocation of callsign prefixes, Britain was given 2, G, M and had 9, V and Z for the Empire.

The US got W, K, N and part of the A series. (They don't seem to have spotted the mnemonic.)

D for Germany and F for France seem obvious enough, but countries late to the table found their first choice gone and had to settle for parts of a full letter series.

Britain at the time would never have considered itself number two in anything, so there had to have been some international coordination going on. It begs the question, who got number one?

Note that there is also a strong correlation with aircraft registrations (Tail Letters), there has to be some connection.

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Old 28th Nov 2020, 7:44 pm   #5
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

Aircraft tail-letters were probably precedented on Marine ships' codes, which also used 4 letters,

I would have thought such things would have been covered by International treaties - a complete set of which are available from the ITU website:

https://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages...nferences.aspx

[Most of the early conference documents seem aimed at Maritime radio - the 1927 Washington one is the first that explicitly mentions land-radio and that only deals with the 'national prefix' part, not the subsequent letters/digits]

In many countries [US, Canada, Australia] the callsigns were explicitly mentioned in the station-name/ident - and still are. I've got an old Aussie broadcast radio here from the 50s where the dial is marked with digit-and-2-letters station-callsigns.

In the UK the Police used to use the last 2 letters of their assigned call: growing up the local police-force was West Mercia, and their base-station (which we all listened to on our FM radios) signed on/off using "YK" - this apparently being an acceptable abbreviation of their full call M2YK
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Old 28th Nov 2020, 7:59 pm   #6
John KC0G
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

The first international call sign prefixes were agreed at the International Radiotelegraph Conference in Washington in 1927. They became effective on 1st January 1929. See http://search.itu.int/history/Histor....43.en.100.pdf and specifically the section on call signs starting on page 68 of the document. At that time prefixes starting with "A" and "B" were specifically reserved. No number prefixes were authorised.

The expansion of the call sign prefixes was agreed at the International Radio Conference at Atlantic City in 1947. Calls beginning AAA-ALZ were allocated to the U.S.A. Calls beginning with a "2" were allocated to Great Britain. No calls starting with "0" or "1" were included in the new system. See http://search.itu.int/history/Histor....43.en.100.pdf and specifically the section on call signs starting on page 91-E of the document.

As of the World Radio Conference in 2019, no prefixes starting in 0, 1, 6, 7, 8 or 9 have been authorised. See http://search.itu.int/history/Histor....43.en.100.pdf and specifically pages 194 and 195 of the document.

73 John
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Old 29th Nov 2020, 11:28 am   #7
saddlestone-man
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Default Re: Early BBC station Call Signs

Jack Hum's list is most interesting.

If you look at the options for the BBC's Nottingham station: 2NG was already allocated to an amateur, the 3xx and 4xx series seem to be dedicated to 'true' amateurs, and so 5NG was the first call sign available with a connection to the city, ie NG, although it seems to have shared the call sign with a school in Egham.

5XX on 1600m was originally located in Chelmsford and then relocated to Daventry. 2XX was already taken by an amateur, so 5XX was allocated. I wonder if XX was meant to signify something?

best regards ... Stef
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