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Getting a callsign

Sooner or later, anyone who has listened to radio amateurs on the air starts to want an official callsign of their own, to join the community, to get on the bands and to enjoy those first contacts. Where to go and what to do β€” there is honestly not much information about this online. But it is all doable, and here are a few pointers.

First, read the Regulations for amateur radio communication in Ukraine carefully. This is the document that governs everything happening in the amateur radio universe β€” the rules, the boundaries and the procedures, so to speak. It genuinely contains 99% of the answers to the questions that come up. On top of that, you need to know its main provisions, because they are what the interview or the examination will be about. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z1106-23#Text

Second, look carefully around you: through mutual acquaintances you will almost certainly find someone with a callsign who can give you practical advice on where to go locally β€” the address of the local radio club or club station. They will be glad to see you there, believe me, if they see the willingness and the spark in your eyes. I know of a case where someone came up on the local repeater and said outright that they had no licence but wanted one. They were helped and told what to do.

And if that does not work, there is the official route β€” longer and less colourful. It may go faster or slower, and some offices accept electronic copies of documents. You will find that out as you go. What follows is the most general and longest version of the procedure.

  • Make paper copies of your passport and your tax identification number.
  • Take Annex 7 from the regulations, print it out and fill it in (you can prepare Annexes 8 and 9 at the same time, or fill them in at the interview or examination).
  • Optional, but very effective: write a short free-form letter about yourself and your wish to get on the air and develop as an operator. Find the address of your regional UCRF (Ukrainian State Centre of Radio Frequencies) office and send everything there by registered post. Then wait for a reply. As a rule this is a follow-up phone call, where, besides a few questions about the documents, you will most likely be given the approximate or exact date and place of the qualification committee meeting (see the regulations for what that is). Once the UCRF accepts the application, the date and time of the interview or examination will be agreed within a month. You will need to travel there for a conversation (if you are applying for class C) or possibly to sit an examination for the higher classes. Some time after the examination the UCRF will send an invoice for its services (as of mid-2024 this was around 130 UAH), and a few days after payment you will receive the licence with your callsign that you have been waiting for.

Important details:

  • Under the regulations, if you live somewhere other than your registered address, you still have to apply at your registered address. Yes, there have been cases of people getting licensed in other regions, but each such case has to be discussed with the local UCRF separately.
  • However! Under the regulations you may sit the interview or examination at any qualification committee, obtain the Annex 6 certificate on the strength of the result, and send that instead of Annex 7 together with the rest of the documents to your local UCRF to obtain the licence. This works β€” tested personally.
  • The most frequent question is what to enter in the table in Annex 8. The truth! Got a Baofeng β€” write it down. Got an HF transceiver β€” write it down. If in doubt, write "homebrew" and "no serial number", along with the bands and power in line with the regulations.
  • If the applicant is a minor, a free-form statement from the parents must be added to the documents above, saying that they have no objection and are in fact delighted that the child would rather throw an antenna up a willow tree than sit on TikTok

It may all look complicated and utterly impossible, but only at first glance. I hope to meet on the air those whom this advice has helped.