Occasionally certain notable events come by, and as mentioned by our blogpost earlier this year we sometimes like to mark such events by running with the appropriate special callsign. More often than not, this will in turn result in special QSL cards we send to the lucky bunch who got into our log. This is part three of our series on QSL cards, following up on the blogpost about the QSL cards from our ordinary callsigns and secondary ones.

LE3JP – 1989

Pope John Paul II was known for being a traveling Pope, and in 1989 he visited our city of Trondheim. This was in it’s own right a special occasion, but in addition to this it was the first time ever that a Pope went traveling to Norway in the first place! To mark the occasion, we were allowed to use the callsign LE3JP, with JP being a reference to the Pope’s initials of course. The design is nothing too spectacular, it’s just the regular card used at the time with a different callsign and some additional remarks for context.

The visit went fairly well, the Pope got to join in for the common mass in the Nidaros Cathedral, and afterwards almost the whole town gathered in the town-square to watch the following procession.

LM1K & LM1SKI – 1997

Trondheim just arranged a World Championship in skiing now this spring, but it was not the first time we had arranged something like this. While we did not aim for a special callsign this year, back in 1997 we brushed off the LM prefix that is the Norwegian official prefix for local celebratory callsigns. Not only this, but by absolute miraculous convenience this happened the same year as the 1000-year anniversary of the founding of Trondheim (Nidaros) as a city.

In the case, we had LM1K for ordinary calls in relation to the anniversary, while we had LM1SKI for calls made during the world championships. Likewise, the other clubs in town would have other LM-SKI callsigns, such as the NRRL group of Trondheim (LA2T) which had LM2SKI. As of our QSL cards, we combined the two into one heck of a card. Maybe a little busy composition, but something makes me think the original idea may have been to have it printed in colors. Alas.

To conclude, let’s have a quick look at LA2T’s millennium and ski cards, as we mentioned them above. The colors are very vibrant and the images very patriotic for our city. Even though it’s just tourist postcards with the text printed on the back at home, it’s an approach we’ve used before ourselves for the “HELL” cards.

LI1K – 2005

There is one celebratory prefix that is not often used. This is LI (and LJ), which is only used for nation-wide celebratory events. When these events take place, every amateur radio operator and club in Norway can replace their LA prefix with LI, or LB prefix with LJ. This happened in 2005, which marked the 100-year anniversary of Norwegian sovereign independence. As you shall see in a bit, it was not the first time these prefixes would come around in recent time.

The motive follows in the spirit of the anniversary, and features a hallmark of many of our QSL cards of the time: Our antennas on the roof of the Student Society, with the flags hoisted tall in the back.

LM1K00Y – 2010

With the old technology college founded in 1910 shortly after our independence, and the Student-Society being founded almost immediately thereafter, 2010 would of course also call for an anniversary. This time for our lovely hosts, in the big Cassa-Rossa building. Our previous LM1K callsign was extended with 00Y, to kinda make it contain the number “100” and Y for years. This way of doing it is fairly common for LM callsigns requested by other groups, for instance by the mentioned LA2T for some of their own anniversaries around the time. LM1K00Y was only used during the start of the fall-semester, as this marked the time of year when the Student-Society was founded at.

The motive is fairly nice, keeping totally in line with the trends mentioned. The addition this time, a new and trendy theme at the time was the vertical frame. Perhaps brought forth by the shiny new smartphones everyone were getting into at the time. The card also features a special version of the Student-Society graphical profile, which had an added swirly frame that was specifically prepared for the anniversary.

LI1K – 2014

Back in the 2005 paragraph, we mention how the LI and LJ prefixes are kind of rare, since there are not that many extraordinary national celebrations around. However, 2014 would follow up rather soon after 2005, as 2014 would mark the 200 anniversary of the Norwegian constitution. The 2014 edition is kind of special, since the special call could be used throughout the entire year.

The trend with vertical motives for our special calls is still going strong, but this time around the motive is taken from a Field-Day. The picture is when hoisting a 40m Yagi beam on top of our infamous Texas-tower, and this picture in particular is from before we figured out the hard way that the antenna was a bit too big for the tower in general, and the tower was a little bit to tall for the particular setup we were running with in the first place at the time.

The Texas-tower is still a staple mast on Field-Days to this day, but it’s by far as tall now, and we only use it to fasten suspension-lines for dipoles these days.

LM100UKA – 2017

In the early days of the Student-Society’s history, a lot of different things happened in reasonably fast succession. Another aspect that would turn into a big occasion once every two years, was the UKA (“The Week”) festival. Originally it started as a student-revue in 1917, not the first student revue held by the Student Society, but the first to be labeled as “UKA”. Every two years thereafter, a new “UKA” revue and festival would be held. The scale of things has increased throughout the ages, so nowadays “UKA” lasts for three weeks, and a lot longer for some if you include all the planning, preparations and rehearsing.

But with a founding year comes an anniversary, and with some inspiration from the 2010 jubilee the special callsign LM100UKA was requested. This was of course a reference to the ordinary LA1UKA callsign we typically use during the festivals.

To get a unique motive, a competition was held in the club. Chosen from a few entries, it was LB2RH Amanda’s design that in the end won the spot, featuring a perspective stylish linework of the Student-Society building facade and the name of the 2017 revue. To be extra celebratory, both sides of the QSL card was printed in color this time around, featuring a picture from the revue and a little bit of historical info on the back side.

Now we have just had our own 100-year anniversary in 2023, with the most unusual callsign of LA100K. I must say that we have not come up with a QSL-card design for that… as of yet. Perhaps, maybe one day, we’ll put our creative minds together and produce the greatest QSL card that may ever be.