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
fifth 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 5th International Call Sign Handbook is now
available for purchase worldwide from Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQWYDPX.
The price for this e-Book edition is US$7.49. 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.
