Once I knew that I had a new callsign, I sat down a wrote down a list of what I needed to do…
(1) QRZ.com website. When my callsign changed a few years back from AD7MI to NI0L, I jumped on the air to “test it out”. On 20m, I was having a PSK31 QSO when the distant party thought I was a pirate station because on QRZ.com my new callsign did not reflect the name and QTH I was using. A pirate! I explained that it was a new callsign but I could tell that the other guy was not buying it.
I thought I would need to go on to QRZ.com and register as a new user. I made a posting in the QRZ.com forum category dedicated to callsign problems. The end result: just wait… the change will take place automatically in a few days.
And that is the case. If you are a US ham and change your callsign, just wait. Within two or three days the callsign change will be reflected on QRZ.com. If you get on the air before QRZ.com is updated, be prepared for people to think you are a pirate.
(2) Log of The World. Easy to do. Just submit for a new certificate under the new callsign. ARRL usually responds within one working day.
(3) EchoIRLP node. This ended up being much easier than I thought it would be.
a. To change your callsign in the IRLP database, go to this webpage using a computer connected to the same router as the IRLP node.
b. Go into your node and edit irlp/custom/environment file to change the old callsign to the new callsign. Restart the node and verify the changes have taken effect.
c. For the EchoLink side:
– Validate your new callsign.
– Check for validation of the new EchoLink call sign / node number on EchoLink using the EchoLink PC client software. Remember, EchoIRLP only allows link (-L) or repeater (-R) nodes.
– Note: you can only register the new callsign once the EchoLink folks of pulled the latest and greatest database update from the FCC. This may take a day or two. Once that is done, you can validate your new callsign. Your new callsign will be assigned a new EchoLink node number. If you want to use your previous node number, EchoLink allows you to swap node numbers between your old callsign and your new callsign.
– Once you are validated and have swapped node numbers edit the files and settings listed below:
/home/EchoIRLP/ custom/tbd. conf
ConferenceCall =
ConferencePass =
/home/EchoIRLP/ custom/echo_ environment
export ECHO_MYCALL=
/home/EchoIRLP/ custom/userdata. txt
Restart IRLP from root login with script /home/irlp/custom/ rc.irlp, or reboot the node.
IRLP node 4433 and EchoLink node 536398 are up and operational.
(4) APRS – change the callsign in my vehicle, HTs, and UI-View32. Pretty straight forward. The home weather station info can now be found here.
(5) Change the blog website. I have been keeping an amateur radio blog for about 10 years now. Web hosting companies make it pretty easy to get a domain for your website and then setup web hosting. I like using WordPress to setup and maintain the actual blog. Fairly straight forward but flexible to do just about anything you would want for a amateur radio blog. The new website is up and running.
(6) Callsign license plate. Kansas makes the pretty simple. I went down to my county office on Friday after work. The application process was smooth and the wait should be about 4-6 weeks.
(7) New QSL card. I am thinking of going with this:
