New callsign
 

Hello,

As of yesterday KM4JOJ has been canceled because I managed to snag a 2x1 Group A call.

I'm now NQ4T.

73

Congrats and 73. All the best,Tom.J

Congrats! Upgrade or vanity call?

Vanity. I got my extra last August and started chasing the 1x2 and 2x1 calls which have gotten difficult to obtain. I wasn't really picky about what group A call I got...1x2's have the "prestige" behind them.....but competition for 2x1 calls is just as fierce.

I got lucky with this one. There was some screwup on AE7Q and the availability date disappeared. I think that made a lot of people think it left the availability pool...but I saw nothing from the FCC that would indicate that. In the end there were about 12 applications for it....3 of them went inactive when those people snagged a vanity.

I'd forgotten I even applied for it. I went on the AE7Q to check the status of my vanity apps and my old callsign came up as canceled. Took me about a minute of "WTF" before I saw the vanity grant.

My first call as a novice was KB2KKX. Absolute hell to get anyone to write it down correctly when checking into a net (they couldn't read their own writing when reading back a net report because the X's looked like K's and vice versa) so I changed my call when I got the Technician upgrade in '90.

I would consider a vanity call, but too many people already know me as N2LCJ, so why screw with it :)

Well I know there are a few people who know me as KM4JOJ...and my one online club was like "you can change your call but you're still JOJ"

The local guys keep forgetting. It took them two years to remember who I was as JOJ...I just tell them it'll take another two years to remember this one.

I did call in to the local repeater as KM4JOJ while driving to work...so it gets me as well.

I feel the same way about my callsign, WB8NHV. This is the only call I've ever had, and I intend to keep it. I am licensed 48 years as of now; I am also a member of ARRL's Old Timers Club (joined in 2002). Won't be much longer (two more years) before I am eligible for the League's OOTC (Old Old Timers Club), since I will have marked 50 years in ham radio by then. I have never once thought of giving up this hobby, even though I live in an apartment building now and cannot erect an antenna for 2m or HF. I get around the latter, though, by operating on the HF ham bands using Echolink. (As well, I still operate 2m with an HT, and am a member of a local ham club here in Lake County, Ohio.) Some folks may not consider EL "real" amateur radio, but as far as I'm concerned, it is better than being off the air entirely. I did not work as hard as I did to get my licenses (Novice through General) just to let them sit in a drawer, gathering dust, just because I left a 3-bedroom house with a basement for a very small apartment over 20 years ago; this hobby means far, far too much to me for that.

73,

Congrats!!!!!!