Callbook??? Whats a Callbook????

Being a V.E. for ham radio sometimes brings on some rather unique things. This past session took us into something rather new. Recently their was a law passed that IF you held a ham radio license you could be grandfathered back in as an active ham without retaking a test. As part of the V.E. team we have to verify that the person actually previously held a valid ham radio license.

One of the other V.E's had the foresight to bring along with him a callbook from 1986. What is a Callbook? A callbook is what we as hams used to look up a fellow hams call etc. for the purpose of QSL'ing and on one occasion I had AES use it to verify I was a ham before selling me a radio. Callbooks were used before the dawn of the age of computers. Instead of  going to a website search box and typing in the call, you would have to leaf through this huge book to find the call you were looking for. To top things off there was one callbook for the United States and another one fo DX contacts.  These books were a bit expensive and had to be bought annually to keep you up to date, plus a quarterly subscription would be offered to find new licensee's. Personally I would buy mine every other year for the U.S. one and would ask someone locally if I needed info for a DX contact. The call books we're a bit costly at the time they were about $35.00 plus shipping and maybe taxes depending where you purchased it from.

Back to the exam, as my fellow V.E's filed in for the session they were wondering what we were using a phone book for? The phone book they were referring too was the callbook and of course they were young and never new of what a callbook was or how to use it. After a brief explanation to them of what it was and how to use it they began to use it and look up calls of hams they new that had been licensed over a long period of time. That exam session lasted less than an hour as we had only 2 hams and they both grandfathered. the session was an educational paperwork session and 2 older hams were able to get on the air once again just in time for Christmas!