XPost: rec.radio.amateur.policy, uk.radio.amateur   
   From: nomail@example.com   
      
   Ian Jackson  wrote:   
   > Obviously, an all-time policy of never re-issuing would result in   
   > callsigns running out, and a compromise would be to at least wait until   
   > the generations of amateurs associated with the various 'generations' of   
   > callsigns were and truly dead, and the person to whom a callsign was   
   > re-issued could no longer be confused with its previous owner.   
      
   It depends on the number of prefixes available/used, normally the number   
   of possible callsigns is quite high.   
      
   E.g. in our system, PA-PH, 9 digits, 1 to 3 letters, there are   
   8*9*(26+26^2+26^3) = 1.3 million combinations.  For a country with 17   
   million inhabitants, that should suffice for a while (there are less   
   than 13000 active registrations now)   
      
   However, I did note to the association that my opinion is that this   
   "never re-issue to another person" should not apply to callsigns with   
   only a single letter in the suffix.  There are only 1872 such callsigns   
   and they could easily run out.  By choosing such a short callsign,   
   one should be prepared to run the risk it is later issued to someone   
   else.  (experience shows that they are often swapped back to the original   
   or another longer callsign, once the operator experiences that a   
   shorter callsign does not always mean it is easier to copy)   
      
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