Ask any radio monitor what information they consider important during any monitoring session, and usually two items will top their list: frequencies and call signs. If you can hear activity on a particular frequency, unless you can fully identify the participants transmitting on that frequency, you can’t fully appreciate or document the traffic you are hearing.
With millions of radio stations furnishing a variety of communication services throughout the world, it is necessary that their transmissions carry distinctive call signs or identifiers. Call signs have a four-fold purpose: They may identify the nationality of the station, the agency operating a particular station, the type of station, and the identity of each individual station being heard on the monitored frequency.
The need for station identifications/call signs can easily be illustrated here in the United States, which leads all other countries in the use of the radio spectrum, that now has some 85 different kinds of radio services operated by the government, military and civilians entities, providing air, sea, land and space communication services. There are hundreds of thousands of stations on the air and call signs and other forms of identification help the radio monitor sort through the various stations that are heard.
A call sign is defined as any combination of alphanumeric characters or phonetically pronounceable characters (trigraph), which identifies a communications facility, a command, an authority, an activity or unit. To aid the radio monitor in their listening endeavors, the International Call Sign Handbook series of books/e-books has been published.
Teak Publishing is pleased to announce their latest Kindle e-book -- the fourth edition of International Call Sign Handbook by Amazon Bestselling author Larry Van Horn, N5FPW. This e-book represents the most comprehensive collection of military and government station identifications ever published for the radio listening hobby. It is the result of year’s research, study and monitoring the HF/VHF/UHF radio spectrum, by the author. Many different radio monitoring disciplines have been used to compile the listings in this book. If you monitor the HF, VHF or UHF radio spectrum, there is something in this book for you.
The information presented in this book has also been gathered through personal correspondence, material published in the former Monitoring Times magazine, various radio publications, newsletters, public domain government and private internet web sites, but most have been gathered the old fashioned way via on-the-air monitoring. In addition, we have received generous support and contributions from many individuals in the radio hobby.
In addition to international and military/government tactical call signs, other types of identifiers such as Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) and Mode-S aircraft addresses have been included in this e-book. There is a chapter that had basic introductory material, as well as chapters devoted to call sign / words used by the Department of Defense including the US. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. There are sections that cover the various Military Auxiliary Radio Services and the U.S. Air Force Civil Air Patrol auxiliary service.
There is also a chapter that covers call signs and ALE identifiers for the U.S. Coast Guard service. Sections in that chapter include a Coast Guard aircraft fleet list, miscellaneous U.S. coast guard calls, and also their international call signs.
Another large chapter covers various U.S. Government call signs. Sections in this chapter include the U.S. Custom and Border Patrol COTHEN radio system and ALE address list, plus call signs from the following department and agencies - Department of Commerce (DOC), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of the Interior (DOI), Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of State, Department of Transportation, Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Communications Commission, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), General Services Administration (GSA), Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD), Miscellaneous Listings, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Communications System (NCS), and U.S. Marshal Service (USMS) service.
One of the larger chapters is devoted to an international / worldwide call signs list. We have a sampling of government and military call signs from 75 counties and international agencies.
The latest craze in aircraft military is decoding Mode-S/ICAO24 radio signals and is included in this book. Our list in this edition covers primarily government / military aircraft and introductory material on Mode-S monitoring.
The last chapter of this book contains a large list of resource information, useful in interpreting the individual entries listed in the book. Sections on U.S. Navy ship/squadron classifications; U.S. Coast Guard cutter designators; a massive list of abbreviations and acronyms that appear in the book; a comprehensive country abbreviation list; and the latest Table of Allocations of International Call signs from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) are included in the last chapter on the e-book.
The Teak Publishing 4th International Call Sign Handbook is now available for purchase worldwide from Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VV7NR1U.
The price for this e-Book edition is US$6.99. This book is being released internationally. Amazon customers in the United Kingdom, Germany, France Spain, Italy, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Australia can order the e-Book from Amazon websites directly servicing these countries. All other countries can use the regular Amazon.com website.
You do not need to own a Kindle reader to read Amazon e-book publications. You can read any Kindle book with Amazon’s free reading apps. There are free Kindle reading apps for the Kindle Cloud Reader, Smartphones (iPhone, iTouch, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry); computer platforms (Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 and Mac); Tablets (iPad, Android and Windows 8), and, of course, all of the Kindle family of readers including the Kindle Fire series. A Kindle e-book allows you to buy your book once and read it anywhere. You can find additional details on these apps at this link on the Amazon website at www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771.
For additional information on this and other Teak Publishing radio hobby books, monitor the company sponsored Internet blogs – The Military Monitoring Post (http://mt-milcom.blogspot.com/), The Btown Monitor Post (http://monitor-post.blogspot.com/) and The Shortwave Central (http://mt-shortwave.blogspot.com/) for availability of additional e-books that are currently in production.
Information on other publications by the author is available on the author’s page at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00G1QMO4C.
About the Author
Amazon bestselling author, Larry Van Horn, a native of San Antonio, Texas, started his radio listening hobby in 1964, when he received his first shortwave receiver.
In 1971 Larry joined the U.S. Navy and served on U.S. naval warships and in the naval aviation community until his retirement in 1993. He retired in New Orleans with the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
He was first licensed as an amateur radio operator in 1973 with the call sign WH6INU. Later, Larry upgraded to General Class and spent his early ham days operating out of the famed KH6SP ham shack in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with his his ham mentor and friend Butch Weber, WA4GIF, chasing DX and contesting.
Now a licensed Extra Class ham, holding the call sign N5FPW, Larry enjoys operating digital modes, contesting and chasing DX. Other aspects of the radio hobby that he enjoys include monitoring military communications (throughout the radio spectrum), federal government monitoring, chasing HF utility communications, satellite monitoring, and AM, FM and TV broadcast DXing.
Larry worked for Grove Enterprises in Brasstown, North Carolina, the publisher of Monitoring Times and Satellite Times magazines. His job on the MT staff was the magazines assistant / technical editor and staff journalist. He wrote for Monitoring Times magazine as a freelance writer and full-time staffer for over 30 years until that publication closed in 2013. Larry was the creative force behind a new publication Satellite Times magazine, and was the magazine’s managing editor, a position he held for more than five years.
He has written dozens of radio equipment reviews and several monthly columns in the pages of the former Monitoring Times including the Signals from Space, Utility World, Fedcom – Federal Monitoring column, Milcom- a military monitoring column, GlobalNet, First Look/MT Equipment/Book Reviews. Service Search, Ask Larry, and the magazine’s Whats New column.
Over the years Larry has also written 10 radio hobby books (some with multiple editions), dozens of magazine features, and numerous technical articles for a wide variety of communications publications and radio hobby club newsletters.
He currently resides in western North Carolina, with his wife Gayle W4GVH. They have one son, Loyd W4LVH, who is married and lives in South Carolina.
Larry is the founder and president of the Teak Publishing Company based in western North Carolina. His first e-book published under the Teak Publishing banner, the North American Enroute Aviation Guide, was an immediate Amazon #1 Best Selling Kindle eBook.
