Dave Patton asked me to pass this along to the ODV list. Harold Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 860 594 0220 hkramer@arrl.org <http://www.arrl.org/> ________________________________ From: Patton, David NN1N Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 3:49 PM To: Kramer, Harold, WJ1B Subject: FJ/PH2AM FJ/OH2AM This operation by OH2BH and OH0XX was conducted under CEPT Recommendation T/R 61-01. This Recommendation makes it possible for radio amateurs from CEPT countries (and certain non-CEPT countries) to operate in other CEPT countries without obtaining an individual temporary license from the visited CEPT country. Complaints were received from several individuals. The main thrust of the complaints is that the operators used a club call for which Laine is station trustee, rather than their individual callsigns. The intention of the operators in using a single callsign was to limit the number of duplicate contacts. Many DXpeditions use club or special-issue callsigns for this reason. The Recommendation makes no mention of club callsigns but says that the visiting license holder "must use his national call sign preceded by the call sign prefix of the visited country." Other operations using club callsigns from French territory, including in the Caribbean, have taken place under provisions of the Recommendation and have been credited for DXCC. Since the question was raised, checking with various CEPT administrations and with the European Radiocommunication Office (ERO) has revealed different views regarding the use of club callsigns under the Recommendation. The ERO observes that the use of a club callsign could prevent an administration from determining whether a particular operator is qualified and concludes, "Club members, including the holder of the club call sign, should use their national personal call signs when abroad." In the case of FJ/OH2AM, the two operators clearly were qualified to operate in St Barthelemy under the Recommendation. They utilized a call authorized to them by their national authority. The purpose of a radio station callsign is to identify the administration and the licensee responsible for the operation of the station. The use of FJ/OH2AM rather than FJ/OH2BH and FJ/OH0XX did not thwart this purpose. 10 January, 2008