And using your example Andy, the DX Clusters would report you as being in Kazakhstan (UP callsigns are from there).
The cluster systems look at both a prefix and a suffix country code as regulations as to whether the country being visited sets their code before or after the callsign are different in different countries/regions.
73 Ed.
Iāve just read in one of Ofcomās online docs (a PDF) that the RSLs were introduced in the 1950s. So, prior to that UK amateurs must have used their assigned callsign without variation no matter where their main residence was in the UK (or crown dependencies).
I tried looking into why RSLs were introduced but could find nothing. RSLs were not required by the ITU. Iām guessing the UK licensing authority at the time (the GPO?) might have introduced RSLs, not due to some new difficulty, but in response to amateurs wanting to identify by their home country. It seems that the use of the RSL wasnāt mandatory but has become the prevailing practise in the decades since then.
I bet the developers of Clublog are jumping for joyā¦
To quote John F. Kennedy:
āThe power to change is the power to grow. Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. But change for changeās sake can be more damaging to your efforts towards creating an engaged and inspired workforce than no change at allā
Theyāve not exactly enjoyed dealing with all the special prefix letters that replace RSLs, either. Likewise, GB* SES calls need special handling. Thereās only so much you can work out just from a callsign. Sometimes you canāt avoid needing additional information about a station at the time of a QSOā¦
Hi Rob, lovely QSL card.
Perhaps someone should contact Ofcom to tell them that this online doc is either wrong or misleading ā¦
www.ofcom.org.uk > assets > pdf_file >
amateur_radio_licence_guidance_for_licensees.pdf
*"RSLs were introduced into the UK Amateur Radio Licence in the 1950s."
And many to give up their personalised number plates.
RSGB started requesting for separate RSLs for UK countries in 1926 but it was several years later before they were agreed. However from 1926 GI was the prefix for Northern Ireland.
Page 121 āWorld at their fingertipsā RSGB book by G6CL.
73 Rob GM3YTS
Rob, you just beat me to it.
I just found this bit of history on RSLs in the UK, at ā¦
From 1930 to 1939 Douglas Chisholm, G2CX, managed the RSGB QSL Bureau from Society Headquarters but from the war years onwards the mammoth task of QSL Manager was undertaken by Arthur Milne, G2MI, from his home in Bromley, Kent. From there with the help of Mrs Lucy Milne and the assistance of a team of sub-managers, more than a million cards were handled annually. During 1926 Gerald Marcuse raised with the Post Office the question of assigning a distinguishing prefix for Scotland and the Isle of Man (as had been agreed recently in the case of GI for Northern Ireland).
ā¦ā¦
Wissenden explained that āthe object of the introduction of a prefix āGā was to bring amateur stations into line with international procedure in cases where such stations were conducting experiments with stations outside Great Britain and Northern Ireland ; it was not intended to denote anything approaching the exact locality of the stationā. Several years were to pass before the Society finally succeeded in persuading the Post Office to issue distinctive prefixes for Scotland (GM) and Wales (GW) and much later for the Channel Isles (GC) and the Isle of Man (GD).
Just submitted my response. It all seems okay to me.
Yes, Ofcom seem to have deliberately left this out, as a foundation holder they might have been able to tempt me to study for the next level with that one carrot, but as there is nothing they are offering that I need I guess iāll stick with what I have & say thank you for the extra 10w that I donāt really need.
Cheers Neil.
There has to be some incentive for getting to full license. CEPT seems to be one of the few that will potentially remain.
Might be sensible to have to apply for any suffix longer than a single letter (or number?) to allow for a sanity check.
Having said that there was a Canadian station last year with a SES callsign āto see how far the Amateur Radio Service Centerā¦would let me go for a special eventā
They realised that in 20-30 years in this country amateur radio will be dead, there just isnāt enough new blood coming in, if anything online training and testing have probably made things worse. Iāve been on two online courses for full, on the last one we were joined by people who wanted to do the Foundation to Full exam, after about three weeks they all dropped off and we hadnāt even got to the hard part! I will be honest I donāt want to do the exam online.
CEPT would be the main reason for me to do the full, as I would love to be able to activate the French and German Low mountains
The G3 series of callsigns lasted from 1946 to 1971, approx 16900 callsigns in 25 years, about 675 a year.
The G8 series of callsigns lasted from 1964 to 1981, approx 16900 callsigns in 17years, about 1000 a year.
The M6 series of callsigns lasted from 2008 to 2018, approx 16900 callsigns in 10years, about 1690 a year.
Your argument that the hobby will be dead in 30 years due lack of new blood is not borne out by the fact that the speed at which new licences are issued is faster than 50 years ago.
Hard data will not convince those who have determined there is a terminal decline. Just look at the ā2m is deadā doom & gloom merchants on here!
Careful, we have churches that have lots of people on the electoral roll so they hope to have a space in the graveyard but you will never see them on Sunday.
73 de
Andrew G4VFL
Or as one of my old bosses used to say, āDonāt blind me with facts, my minds made upā 
I notice one of the proposed changes is to allow English operators the right to include an āEā after their āMā as in ME6GYU Obviously this only applies to to holders of M callsigns.
I can see that causing a problem. Quite a few operators will end up sending what may sound like a āGā and itāll cause a lot of confusion with operators outside the UK who may guess its a āGā being sent. .
Dave
