Curiosities II — facts & legends

⚰️ What happens to a callsign after death?

A German callsign is tied to the licence. When the holder dies or hands the licence back, the allocation expires — but the callsign is not reassigned immediately. In Bundesnetzagentur practice a blocking period of usually two years applies before a released callsign returns to the pool. Anyone who returns their own callsign can reclaim it on request within that period (§ 11 AFuV).

And the family? Relatives of a deceased ham — spouse, children — can apply to take over the callsign, provided they hold a suitable licence themselves. That is how a callsign sometimes stays in a family for generations. There is never a legal claim to a specific callsign though (§ 11 (1) AFuV).

What the list tells us: every edition is a snapshot. From the next edition on we will show the arrivals and departures here — which callsigns were newly assigned and which have disappeared.

🚫 Banned suffixes — yet in the list

The Bundesnetzagentur callsign plan (Ordinance 15/2025, no. 7) excludes certain suffixes: the international distress signals SOS, XXX, TTT, YYY, DDD, JJJ, MAYDAY, PAN, all Q codes from QOA to QUZ, unconstitutional codes and misleading ones.

Q codes: not a single callsign carries a suffix between QOA and QUZ — the rule holds (no QRP, QRZ or QSL suffixes exist). Distress signals are another story: 7 callsigns carry a suffix from the banned list — PAN six times and DDD once. Probably legacy allocations or a matter of interpretation — curious either way.

🕰️ Time travel: where the prefixes come from

1. 1913Germany receives the letters A, D and KAA–KCZ; the digit 4 becomes the amateur country marker.
2. 1925–1927First K callsigns (KB1), then K4 + two letters, from 1927 “EK 4 ABI” — Europe marker plus three letters.
3. 1929The D prefix becomes official: D4ABI. The last suffix letter reveals the location.
4. 1946–1948Occupation zones operate under D2 (British), D4 (American), D5 (French).
5. 1949The ITU assigns DA–DL to West Germany, DM–DT to the GDR. DL1/DL3 for citizens, DL2 for Britons, DL4 for Americans, DL5 for the French, DL7 for West Berlin, DL0 for club stations.
6. 1950s–1980sBlocks fill up: DJ, DK, then DC, DD, DF, DB, DG, DH are added — partly tied to licence classes.
7. until 1980GDR callsigns begin with DM (DM2 personal, DM3–5 clubs). In 1980 the GDR demonstratively switches to Y2–Y9.
8. 1990Reunification: Germany holds DA–DR and Y2–Y9. DM is revived as a class A prefix; the Y blocks stay almost empty (exception: WRTC 2018 with Y8).
9. 1998/2003Entry class with prefix DO; training callsigns DN.
10. 2024New class N with DN9; callsign plan ordinances 53/2024 and 61/2024. DN1–DN8 training callsigns phase out by end of 2028. Special callsigns may have 4–7 suffix characters, max. one year.
11. 2025Ordinance 15/2025 consolidates the plan: DR1–DR6 for club stations of emergency organisations and emergency-comms groups.

The legacy of 1949 is still measurable

DL7 was the West Berlin callsign. More than 75 years later, of 1.213 DL7 stations with an address, 507 are still in Berlin — 41,8 %, although Berlin holds only 2,9 % of all hams with an address. The occupation blocks DL2, DL4 and DL5, by contrast, are spread completely unremarkably today.

📍 Where does Germany transmit? Callsigns per 100,000 inhabitants

In absolute numbers NRW leads — per capita the map looks completely different: Niedersachsen has the highest ham density at 87.5 callsigns per 100,000 inhabitants, Sachsen-Anhalt the lowest at 43.1. City states and the East trail, North and South lead.

Basis: entries with ZIP; population Destatis, Bevölkerung 31.12.2023.

🔒 The younger the prefix, the more private

The share of callsigns without a published address depends strikingly on the prefix. Older prefixes like DG, DF or DB sit at 5–9 % — the newer DO, DN and DM above 25 %. Those licensed in recent years object to publication far more often. Privacy is a generational thing.

👋 First names in the suffix

A callsign with your own first name — many hams’ dream. MAX, KAI, UWE top the list. In total 62 different first names hide in German suffixes. Click a callsign to open QRZ.com.

🦊 Animals, cars, everyday life — words in the suffix

VW beats BMW, the fox beats the cat, and there are callsigns with RAT, YAK, UHU, KUH (cow), OMA and OPA (grandma/grandpa). LOL, YES, GPS and CPU are taken too.

🎓 Calling Dr. …

2.111 callsign holders carry a doctorate — 3,0 % of all entries (counted only, no names). Class A: 3,3 %, class E: 1,5 %. The city states have the highest doctor density: Hamburg at 3.96 %.

🏡 Two locations, one callsign

3.009 entries list an operating location different from the home address — the weekend house, the holiday flat, the parents’ farm. For 543 of them the second site is even in another federal state.

🌱 Newcomers & room in the alphabet

Class N, introduced in 2024, already counts 1.148 callsigns — practically all in block DN9.

And how full is the alphabet overall, across all classes? Per prefix and digit there are 676 two-letter and 17,576 three-letter suffixes. Even the fullest three-letter block, DL1 (class A), is only 16,3 % taken. Plenty of room — only the short callsigns are scarce.

Fullest three-letter blocks, all classes (of 17,576)

Almost empty two-letter blocks

Double-letter suffixes (AA, BB … ZZ): 1.621. Most common first letter of a suffix: M.