7J-8N

7J-8N Stations Categorization

A 7J-8N amateur call sign implies

1. a foreigner,
2. an individual under the call sign shortage in Area 1 — these two are sequentially assigned —,
3. an outside province,
4. a special event,
5. an ARISS school contact,
6. an experience station or
7. a disaster relief.

The following is not a written policy, but a follow-up categorization by the author. (8K and 8L are not used yet.)

7J-8N PREFIX AMATEUR STATION
|-Foreigner licensed 1985-1999 (7J#$$$)
|
|-Individual in Area 1, licensed in the call sign shortage 1990-2003 (7[K-N][1-4]$$$)
|
+-Special call sign (8J's,  8N's, 7J1RL, 8M1C and 8M2000)
  |-Special place: outside Japan
  | |-Polar region
  | | |-Antarctic region
  | | | |-JARL Antarctic station (8J1R[L|M|F])
  | | | +-Individual (8J1AA-AD, 1958-1975)
  | | |
  | | +-Arctic region (8J1NP, 1978)
  | |
  | |-Another Country/Entity: Okinotorishima I. (7J1RL, 1976)
  | |
  | +-Space: Satellite itself (8J1J[A-C]S)
  |
  |-Commemoration
  | |-JARL
  | | |-Specially commemorative station
  | | | |-Regular
  | | | | |-Hamfair (8J1HAM, 8N1HAM, 8J1A)
  | | | | |-ITU Day (8J#ITU, 1977-2003)
  | | | | +-IARU World HF Championship Contest (8J3XHQ, 8J3JHQ, 8N[2|3]JHQ, 8N#HQ)
  | | | |
  | | | +-Approved by the Board
  | | |
  | | +-Special staion (Approved by Chairman)
  | |
  | +-Other amateur organization
  |
  |-ARISS school contact temporary station
  | Permitting a PTT-control by elementary and junior high schoolers without ham radio licenses
  |
  |-Experience temporary station
  | Permitting a talk by persons without ham radio licenses (8J#[Y|Z]$$)
  |
  +-Disaster Relief
    |-1995 South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake (8J3AAA-AMT)
    +-The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake (8J1QAA-QLN)

7J — Foreigners who established their stations 1985-1999

Prefix 7J is for foreign amateurs who reside in Japan under reciprocal permit since Sept. 17, 1985.

(l-r) 7J1AAD, 7J1AAE, 7J1AAA and 7J1AAB

But on May 28, 1999, the Japanese authority has announced that, for non-Japanese, they will start to use the same call sign series as the Japanese. No discriminations any more. (But maybe 7J's sound better....) So the 7J prefix will not be issued any more, while existing stations can continue to use their original 7J call signs (in addition, an old holder can bring back his/her expired 7J call sign). They were issued sequentially from 7J#AAA, while 7J6C$$ means 7J's in Okinawa (normally US military). A club station having a foreigner representative which the authority granted since 1993 uses the 7J#Y$$ block.

91 individuals and 20 clubs still remain (as of the end of 2019).

Exception — 7J1RL

7K-7N — Call Sign Shortage in Area 1

Prefixes 7K1-7N1, 7K2-7N2, 7K3-7N3 and 7K4-7N4 were issued during the call sign shortage era Apr. 23, 1990 - June 20, 2003 for Area 1 (i.e. Not for Area 2, 3 and 4).

8J — Special Event, ARISS Scool Contact and Experience

Prefix 8J is normally used for
(1) special event stations,
(2) ARISS school conatact temporary stations (operational by licenseless elementary and junior high schoolers) and
(3) experience temporary stations (operational by licenseless persons including adults).

According to the result of WRC-03 — in Japan, applied on June 24, 2004 — the MIC permitted the applicant to select the any of from "single-" to "five-character" suffix as 8J#$, 8J#*$, 8J#**$, 8J#***$, 8J#****$; 8N#$, 8N#*$, 8N#**$, 8N#***$ or 8N#****$ — 8[J|N][0-9][0-9A-Z]{0,4}[A-Z] in a regular expression —, under the following conditions:

• The last character ($) should be a letter.
• # should be the area number.
• QRA-QTZ should be excluded.
• Experience temporary stations should be assigned 8J#YAA-ZZZ sequentially.

Special Cases — Unusual Format Call Signs

Complete List of Unusual Format Call Signs

Call Sign	Event	Year	Actual Call Area
8J1WJ	The 13th Boy Scouts World Jamboree	1971	2 (Not 1)
8J90XPO	The International Garden and Greenery Expo	1990	3 (Not 9)
8J2000	2000 AD	2000	1 (Not 2)
8M2000
8N2000
8M1C	FIFA World Cup, Yokohama	2002	1
8N23WSJ	The 23rd Boy Scouts World Jamboree	2015	4 (Not 2)

8J1WJ was directly licensed by the Ministry (not by its branch) and was the very first 8J station in Japan's mainland — i.e. except Antarctica. It might be there was no call area concept for a special-event station yet, in such ancient days.

Exception 1 — Antarctica and Arctica

Likewise, An Arctic expedition station by Nihon University had 8J1NP.

Exception 2 — Satellites

Exception 3 — Emergency

1995 South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake

During the aftermath of Kobe earthquake which occured on Jan. 17, 1995, the JARL and the Japan Amateur Radio Industries Association (JAIA) conducted the effort at the request of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (now "the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications"). JAIA member companies supplied two hundreds (200) hand-held transceivers, followed by additional sixty (60) ones, for 430 and 1260 MHz for the operation. The Ministry orally licensed each of them and assigned a special call sign 8J3AAA, 8J3AAB and so on. All licensees are the JARL.

Overview of the Emergency Communications Network

2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake

During the aftermath of Tohoku-Kanto earthquake which occured on Mar. 11, 2011, JAIA supplied two hundreds (200) Icom handy transceivers. Vertex Standard and Alinco, which are both JAIA non-members, also responded with fifty (50) tranceivers each. The Ministry assigned them a special call sign 8J1QAA, 8J1QAB and so on. Though the quake occured at Area 7 offshore, the Kanto (Area 1) Bureau licensed them, on behalf of busy Tohoku Bureau. All licensees are the JARL.

8M — Special Event Stations, for a suffix alignment

Prefix 8M was exceptionally used only twice, to align a suffix among three stations for a same event.

• 8M2000
  with 8J2000 and 8N2000, all for AD2000 memorial.
• 8M1C
  with 8J1C and 8N1C, all for FIFA World Cup 2002.

8N — Special Event (originally under either of two conditions) and ARISS School Contact

Prefix 8N gradually became popular for special event and ARISS school contact stations. Originally, 2001 and before, it meant, but not mandatorily, a special event station
(1) having availability to be operated by foreign amateurs without any reciprocal permit, or
(2) locating in Okinawa as 8N6.

Having been cleared away such special meanings, nowadays an applicant can select either 8J or 8N without any distinction — nevertheless it would be fact that 8N still implies that "more special than 8J" for us.

Foreigners Operable

Before the first ever appearance of an 8N prefix in 8N1WCY in 1983, we had 8J1WJ and 8J3ITU as foreigners operable special event stations.
After the clearing away of the difference between 8J and 8N, 8J2AI became foreigners operable in 2005. In addition, 8J1XPO in 1985 was also a foreigners operable even its 8J prefix.

In Okinawa

Even in this era, prefix 8N6 is not mandatory for Okinawa. In fact, 8J6SMT and 8J6FTY existed in this region in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

Exception — 8N2000