Why VH?

[Pedota]

A passenger recently asked me why all Australian aircraft have ‘VH’ before their three letter call sign . . . and why NZ uses ‘ZK’, the US ‘N’(and numbers) and GB ‘G’ (and letters). What is the history and logic behind this nomenclature and where can I see a complete list?

Many thanks

[Cessna Capt]

Can't help on why we got VH, but the link below should take u to a list of other countries prefixes.

Aircraft Reg Prefixes (http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*49759745!mtd*41!var*20!cgi*/cgi-bin/get_file!buf*66!src*_landings/pages/search/reg-prefix.html!ref*prefix_c.html)

CC :cool:

[Hugh Jarse]

I think that all the aircraft registered in British colonies had the prefix V. The second letter was relative to the country.

And before anyone comes out with the old "Victor Hargreaves" idea, it was Lawrence Hargreaves who was involved in the early days of aviation.:p

[BlueEagle]

VR used to be Bermuda.

[QNIM]

Pedota
There was a posting re this subject about 6 months ago on D&G and HJ has got it right it was Lawrence not Victor.
Cheers Q

[SepsOff]

HJ,
I realise I'm running the risk of your reply having the word "sheep" in it, but what happened to the V in ZK then?

[Hugh Jarse]

Britain would never admit to N.Z. being a colony, therefore the "V" prefix is not applicable ;)

Sorry, couldn't resist. :D

Seriously, I don't know why NZ has ZK.

I was waiting for all the "Victor Hargreaves" experts to come out.....:p

[Keg]

OK, so I know who Lawrence was but what is Victor supposed to be famous for? Lawries' brother?

[Aussie Andy]

I think its related to the history of Radio callsigns, which are - or at least used to be - agreed globally in blocks assigned to each country so that there was not overlap on global HF services which used to be the mainstay of international telegraphy & telephony in the past. As such communications used to take place in universally shared bandwidth, it was obviously important to be able to positively identify stations through the use of callsigns.

For example, amateur (ham) radio callsigns in Australia begin "VK" (mine used to be VK2-CHA - 2 for New South Wales), and I believe certain police HF services used "VL", another of the callsign "blocks" assigned to Australia. VH, likewise was I believe, would've been assigned for airborne stations -> i.e. aircraft.

I think that the callsign blocks are (or were?) agreed / assigned via the ITU (http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/) - the International Telecommunications Union Radio Division - or some similar multi-lateral QuANGO.

I don't think callsigns are as important today as they once were, so this is probably now an historical anachronism.

Hang on... Found it!

Found on ITU website a table which lists every internationally assigned callsign block - see http://www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/glad/cga_callsign.sh?lng=E&sort_by=0 which is as specified in table 42 of something called "Article 19 of the Radio Regulations (RR)":

Australia is assigned the following:AXA-AXZ
VHA-VHZ
VIA-VIZ
VJA-VJZ
VKA-VKZ
VLA-VLZ
VMA-VMZ
VNA-VNZ
VZA-VZZ

[Aussie Andy]

Interesting! I still reckon that ICAN / ICAO allocated these callsigns in accordance with ITU radio callsign block allocations...

There's a couple of good sites detailing history of ICAO here (http://www.icao.int/eurnat/history.htm) and here (http://www.icao.int/cgi/goto.pl?icao/en/history.htm) for anyone sad enough to be interested (like me!?!) :)

[Torres]

The "V" series were allocated to ex British Colonies (VP, VR, VH etc). I think you will find New Zealand and South Africa had a different legal status - considered Condominiums or some such term - and thus received a different allocations.

Britain exercised almost total control over Australian Civil Aviation until around 1935 - 1936 and in particular, on the UK - Australian Kangaroo Route. Indeed, Qantas flourished due to it's choise of British made aircraft whilst Kingsford Smith was denied international rights due to his selection of "foreign" made aircraft.