History
The callsign WU1ITU comes from a short-lived kind of special-event callsign of the 1970s.
An idea from the May 1974 issue of QST
The May 1974 issue of QST is the inspiration for the club callsign. In the years around 1974, U.S. amateur radio licensees could obtain temporary extra callsigns for use on May 17, World Telecommunication Day, which marks the founding of the International Telecommunication Union in 1865. Each of those callsigns ended in the letters ITU.
| Part | Allowed | In WU1ITU |
|---|---|---|
| First letter | K or W | W |
| Second letter | One letter | U |
| Digit | One digit | 1 |
| Suffix | ITU | ITU |
From one day to a club call
Those May 17 callsigns were valid for a single day. WU1ITU keeps the same shape as a permanent club callsign, with the digit 1 placing it in the first call district.
The callsign has also been used with portable indicators, such as WU1ITU/7 in Oregon and WU1ITU/4 in Georgia during the 2017 solar eclipse. Today it is used mainly for remote operation on 160 m and 6 m.
Timeline
Key points in the station’s activity, in order.
- 1974: QST describes the May 17 ITU callsigns.
- 1996 to 2021: the station operates primarily on CW.
- August 2017: WU1ITU/7 operates from Oregon during the solar eclipse.
- October 2017: the JT65 Deep Search patch for EME DXpedition signals is published.
- After 2021: FT8 becomes the main mode, mostly on 160 m and 6 m.