The Call Signs of ARK

One would assume that a radio club only needs a single call sign to use on the air. While that is true, it doesn’t have to be. There might be a special occasion, a special year, or even a different geographic location that alters how you should address your presence on the air. In our club it has happened quite a few times, so for curiosity’s sake, in this post we’ll try to list them all, at least the ones we’ve been able to find in our archives. This includes call signs, and variation of callsigns with different prefixes and suffixes.

ARK got it’s callsign in 1926. It’s probably the one in Norway with oldest continuous use, as it belonged to a club and not a living person. The liberalisation of the Norwegian telecommunications sector in 1987 and perhaps an international trend of special and secondary callsigns at the time, paved the way for ARK to acquire it’s first special call as well in 1989. Since then we’ve used a few more, and a few more. Let’s have a look at the list:

Club Call Signs

These are call signs that ARK continue to use for different purposes.

LA1K
– The one that started it all, and ARK’s main call sign. With generations of operators spelling it out, It is possibly the call sign with the most contacts of all time in Norway. It was issued in 1926 and has been rumoured to be the third issued in Norway, according to the license book of 1987. While it may be true, our transmitter permit states “No. 12”, so the author has to be inconclusive for now.

LN1K
– The LN-prefix is used for designated contests set by NRRL. Technically it may count as a special call sign, but it’s used so often each year we thought it would fit better here. As LN may be used for several of our other calls, it’s also included just once here for as an “umbrella listing”. LN1K was first used in 2003.

LA1ARK
– ARK’s secondary call sign. For when the club participate at the club house and remotely or portable at the same time. It was first issued in 1997. For more backstory, look at the call sign “LA1KA”.

LA1UKA
– Every other year, (odd numbered ones), the student festival “UKA” is hosted by the Student Society in Trondheim were ARK is located. During the span of the festival, this call is used. It was first issued in 1997. For more backstory, look at the call sign “LA1KA”.

LA1YLS
– A call sign for the girls of ARK. After a solid amount of YL QSOs on Field Day 2024, the OPs got motivated to have their very own. It was first used at YL-OM 2025. As a side note, Norwegian women were also issued “YL” call signs back in the day early days of radio, e.g. LA4YL from 1935.

Special Call Signs

These are the special call signs that are limited to use for a special event.

LA100K
– Our club turned 100 years old in 2023. To celebrate the occasion, LA100K was used throughout the whole year. It was notoriously difficult to use during contests with “Zero Zero” being confused with “Sierra Sierra” all the time!

LE3JP
– The oldest special call that we know of, used by ARK in 1989. It was used during the visit of Pope John Paul II, hence the “JP” in the call. The “LE” prefix has since changed it’s use and is now used by NRRL’s “Sambandstjenste”

LI1K
– Another prefix variation. The LI-prefix was used in both 2005 and 2014, in relation to the 100th anniversary pf the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, and the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian constitution which was written in 1814. The LI-prefix was also used during the 1994 Olympic Winter Games, where the NRRL groups 4 municipalities that hosted the events had one each.

LM1K
– Trondheim was founded in 997 and was celebrating it’s 1000 anniversary in 1997. Celebrate with a special call, why not.

LM1SKI
– The forth and final call sign which was first used in 1997, a very busy year indeed. The occasion this time was for the 1997 Ski Championships in Granåsen. We applied for “LA1SKI” for the 2025 Ski Championships hosted at Granåsen as well, but we never heard back from NKOM so it went unused.

LM1K00Y
– The Student Society in Trondheim was founded in 1910, and for the 100th anniversary in 2010 this special call was used from October 1.-10.

LM100UKA
– The festival “UKA” celebrated it’s 100th anniversary in 2017 and of course a special call was needed for that as well.

Excursions

These are call signs used for several noteworthy trips, that we know of.

JW1K
– In early 2025, LA1K-member LB0VG and LA2T-member LB5SH went on a trip to Svalbard. To our knowledge, this is the first time JW1K has been used.

LA1K/P
– Perhaps another “umbrella term”, this time for all the portable suffixes for all of our callsigns. Stroke Portable is used for all kinds of portable trips that occur every year, but the Field Day contest has the most amount of yearly QSOs with this call.

LA1K/V
– There’s been a tradition in ARK to take the train to Hell, just outside of Stjørdal, and participate on the Hellschreiber mode. The “/V” suffix is a rather outdated way to announce you are not currently transmitting from your regular QTH, and in this case it means you are operating in “North Trøndelag”, which was represented by the county code of the letter V. A formal letter from “Televerket” explains the purpose in 1966.

SV8/LA1K/P
– In April 2023 a few operators from LA1K went to Samos, Greece during Easter. As the island had 8 different SOTA-summits, we tried to conquer as many as we could. We got a QSO with LA100K at home on the 17 meter band.

Discontinued

These are call signs ARK will no longer continue to use.

LA1KA
– ARK’s first try at a secondary call sign, used from 1990-1997. The club originally applied for LA1ARK but the agency for whatever reason refused and LA1KA was issued instead. The purpose of the call was to allow ARK to compete with more operators and among itself, as the contest scene was roaring at the time. The call was eventually discontinued in 1997, as LA1ARK and LA1UKA was finally issued to the club.

Beacons

All the Beacons are located at Vassfjellet and already have their own page at our website for status and information.

LA2UHF – 70cm – 432.463 MHz

LA2VHF – 2m – 144.463 MHz

LA2VHF/4 – 4m -70.063 MHz

LA2SIX – 6m – 50.488 MHz

LA2SHF – 23cm – 1296.963 MHz – Will not return to service

Norwegian Ham Radio Prefixes

You may have noticed that a lot of the call signs did not start with LA and used several different letters which were allocated to Norway, why is that? While gathering information for this post, it was a goal to be able to answer not only that, but how the letters for all the Norwegian allocated prefixes are delegated.

Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to that question. There has been several revisions and updates to use of the callsigns, with the current set up dating back to around 2004. There are unofficial lists on Wikipedia which is very similar to the practical implementation of the current delegations. However, it lists no sources or point to official documents to back this up. If someone does have official documents however, feel free to share them with us as it would be very interesting for the history of Norwegian HAM radio.

Conclusion

We hope this list was interesting for those who made it all the way to this bottom paragraph. This has been a work in progress for some time, and the different call signs were gathered many months ago, as can be seen if looking up the call signs on QRZ.com. It would be interesting to answer a lot of the questions regarding the history of Norwegian prefixes as well, but after a lot of time, energy and no progress, we thought it was about time to call it quits and publish what we were able to properly document.

Any further updates regarding our call signs will be updated at our “Call Signs” page found under the “About” section in the menu above.