Saturday, October 11, 2008

International Callsign Handbook Now Available

This blog is supported and sponsored by Teak Publishing, and the sale of its radio hobby publications. We appreciate your support by purchasing our publications that keeps our radio blogs operational.




Teak Publishing is proud to announce the release their second eBook – International Callsign Handbook, 2nd edition, by Gayle and Larry Van Horn.

Radio hobbyists interested in receiving and identifying radio stations in the HF/VHF/UHF radio spectrums now have a new whopping 1414 page CD-ROM publication to aid them.

International Callsign Handbook is a concise world directory of various types of radio station identifications covering the military, government, maritime, aeronautical, and fixed radio stations on CD-ROM. Thousands of callsigns and other types of identifiers have been collected from our own personal log book, official sources and dedicated hobbyists who contributed their material.

The 12 chapters of this new eBook cover the following subjects:

● Chapter 1 – Introductory material

● Chapter 2 – Extensive lists of resource information useful in interpreting the individual entries for each identification listed in the book. We have included sections on U.S. Navy ship/squadron classifications; U.S. Coast Guard cutter designators; a massive list of abbreviations and acronyms that appear in the book; a comprehensive country abbreviation list; and the latest Table of Allocations of International Callsigns from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

● Chapter 3 – Special chapter devoted to monitoring ACARS communications. For the aviation buff, we have included an extensive list of the abbreviations and a sample message type used by aircraft when communicating using this digital radio system.

● Chapter 4 – Comprehensive lists of internationally assigned callsigns.

● Chapter 5 – Worldwide listing of airline callsigns and ICAO codes.

● Chapter 6 – Covers the new field of decoding ICAO24 codes from aircraft. Our list in this edition will primarily cover military aircraft.

● Chapter 7 – Provides a large sample of military Selcal codes that have been recently decoded by on-the-air monitoring.

● Chapter 8 – Civilian Marine Vessel Callsigns.

● Chapter 9 – Introductory material on monitoring the marine GMDSS frequencies with coastal and ship MMSI identifications.

● Chapter 10 This chapter covers the new and exciting field of Automatic Link Establishment or ALE monitoring in the HF radio spectrum and includes a very large list of ALE addresses.

● Chapter 11 – The largest chapter in this book is an extensive listing of Tactical Callsign and Code Words. This chapter covers government and military tactical calls and selected code words for services and agencies worldwide.

● Chapter 12 – is a collection of U.S. military call words that change, usually on a daily basis. The call words presented in this chapter are usually used by various elements of the Strategic Forces such as airborne command post, TACAMO aircraft, GEP or ground entry point stations, and other units worldwide.

The International Callsign Handbook is published in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) electronic format and is fully searchable/printable. It can be run on any computer platform and uses the Adobe Acrobat reader program (a free Internet download).

CD-ROM System requirements:
Autorun function supported on Microsoft Windows 98 or later for PCs (Adobe Reader Versions 6, 7 or 8 must be installed to view publication). Publication PDF files can be view on any Apple Macintosh computer that has Preview or Adobe Reader versions 7 or 8 installed (no Autorun function supported on Mac platforms). Vista platform users have special instructions included in order the view the eBook on the CD-ROM.

The book is written by MT QSL Report columnist Gayle Van Horn, W4GVH, and Larry Van Horn, N5FPW, MT's Assistant Editor/Milcom columnist. If you want to identify who you are hearing on your radio, then this book should be on your radio shack shelf.

International Callsign Handbook, 1414 pages. 2nd Edition. © 2008, by Teak Publishing of Brasstown, North Carolina. (ISBN: 978-0-9796311-1-5).

Cost:
United States US$19.95 plus US$3.00 shipping and handling
All International Orders US#19.95 plus US$5.00 shipping and handling

You can order your book directly from Teak Publishing using check (must clear the bank first), money order or via PayPal

If you want to order via credit card, please contact one of our two dealers - Grove Enterprises or Univeral Radio. There are links to these fine companies on our blog resource guide to the right of this article.

To contact Teak Publishing directly write to P.O. Box 297, Brasstown, NC 28902 USA or via email at teakpub@brmemc.net.

If you are a dealer and would like to carry our books we have dealer pricing available. You can see information on our first book at http://mt-milcom.blogspot.com/2007/09/world-qsl-book-now-available.html