Handbook, chapter 2. Your callsign: how to get one in Ukraine

You can listen to the air from day one, with no permission of any kind. The moment you key the transmitter you need a callsign, and that is not a formality: the air is shared, and it has to be clear who is on it.

The good news: the path is shorter than it looks, and its first step is free.

The whole path

The order of the steps has been the same for years. What changes is what happens inside each one — which is why the specifics are not written here but taken from the regulator.

Note the upper branch: a listener callsign is issued without an exam. It entitles you to listen and keep a log, but not to transmit — and it is a perfectly normal way to start before facing any board.

Who regulates what

This is a common source of confusion, but the division of labour is simple.

NCEC — the National Commission for State Regulation of Electronic Communications, Radio Frequency Spectrum and Postal Services — writes the rules. It is the body that approved the current Ukrainian Amateur Radio Regulations (decision No. 173 of 10 May 2023, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 29 June 2023 under No. 1106/40162).

UCRF — the Ukrainian State Centre of Radio Frequencies — applies those rules: it takes applications, prepares and issues the documents. It works through regional offices, so it is your own regional office you go to.

The Qualification and Technical Board (QTB) conducts the examination.

The Ukrainian Amateur Radio League and regional amateur radio organisations help you prepare and assign listener callsigns.

Three licence classes

The classes follow the European CEPT system, so your qualification means something outside the country too.

Class	Who it is	What it grants
C	student	entry level, the tightest restrictions
B	novice operator, NOVICE	limited bands and power, recognised under CEPT
A	full operator, HAREC	full access to the amateur bands, the highest power, the right to supervise other operators and to operate remotely

You do not have to start at class A, and often should not: classes C and B are taken as an interview rather than a written exam, which puts them within reach of a schoolchild. You can upgrade later, and most people do.

The procedure

Seven steps, the first three of them free.

1. An application to the QTB stating your intention to sit the exam — form AZ-1.
2. The exam. An interview for the student and novice classes; a written theory exam against the published syllabus for the higher class. The exam is free.
3. A certificate that you passed — form AD-1.
4. A declaration of equipment conformity — form AZ-2, submitted to the QTB. The board checks your particulars, that the form is complete, and that the declared technical characteristics are consistent.
5. An application to the UCRF regional office — form AZ-3, together with the certificate, the declaration and a copy of your passport (pages 1 and 2 plus the residence registration stamp) or of your ID card with a registration certificate.
6. Payment. The invoice is sent within 15 working days of the application being registered.
7. Collecting the document — within 3 working days of payment.

The document is valid for at least ten years.

Minors need the consent of a legal guardian and must also submit a copy of the birth certificate and the guardians' passports. Foreign nationals need a copy of a passport or residence permit.

How to prepare

The syllabuses are annexes to the Regulations: annex 3 for the student class, annex 4 for NOVICE, annex 5 for HAREC. There is no secret and no surprise: everything you will be asked is listed there.

The topics are the standard European ones and line up roughly with this book: basic electrical theory, how a receiver and a transmitter are built, antennas and feed lines, propagation, measurement, electromagnetic compatibility, safety, operating practice and regulations.

There is an online question trainer — radiotest.org.ua. Running through it a few times is more useful than reading notes: it shows straight away which topics are weak.

If you have read chapter 4, 6, 9 and 10, most of the technical half of the exam is already covered.

What it costs

The exam is free. Only the preparation and issuing of the document at the UCRF is charged for; ask your regional office for the current fee, as it is revised from time to time.

The listener callsign

A separate route that often gets overlooked. Listener callsigns are assigned by regional non-governmental organisations in agreement with the UCRF — no exam, no board.

What it gives you: the right to keep an official log of the stations you receive, to collect confirmations for them and to go after listener awards. And along with that, months of practice on the air before you ever key a transmitter.

Checked on 6 September 2026 — check it yourself too

The procedure, the forms, the fees and even the membership of the boards change, and the responsibility for a wrongly prepared document is yours. So:

• the primary source — the Ukrainian Amateur Radio Regulations with their annexes;
• the service and the current fees — the amateur radio page on the UCRF site;
• real people who will walk you through it — your regional UCRF office and the local amateur radio organisation.

This chapter is a retelling written in September 2026. It shows you the procedure; check the figures and the forms against the links above.

About callsigns themselves

The International Telecommunication Union allocated the EM–EO and UR–UZ series to Ukraine. That is why a Ukrainian callsign starts with one of those letters, and why a station that hears UR or UT on the air knows the country before you have named your QTH.

A callsign is issued to you personally and for ten years. It is your name on the air — the same one that will then stand in every entry of your log and on every confirmation card.

How it is put together

A Ukrainian callsign can be read once you know three things.

The prefix is two letters and a digit. The UR–UY series are issued for ordinary licences, EM–EO are reserved for special ones. The digit in a Ukrainian callsign means nothing: it merely widens the pool of combinations. This sets Ukraine apart from a number of countries where the digit indicates a district — which is why guessing the region from it is futile.

The first letter of the suffix is the region. Twenty-five nominal districts, one letter each. That is the single character that tells you where a station is from.

The length of the suffix is the licence class. Two letters go to operators of the highest class, three to everyone else. And if the second character of a three-letter suffix is W, X, Y or Z, it is a club or society station rather than an individual.

The slash after a callsign

When you are operating away from home, a letter is added to the callsign after a slash. It does not change the callsign — it warns the other station that the region they associate with you may be different this time:

/P	from the field
/A	from a fixed location other than the main one — a summer house, a place in the country
/M	from a car
/MM	from a vessel
/AM	from an aircraft
/QRP	at up to 5 W
/QRPP	at up to 1 W

⚠️ The slash says what you are doing, not where you are. So when operating from another region you have to say where you are out loud — the callsign will not tell anyone.

Foreign operators working from Ukraine put UT before their own callsign: UT/W1USA.

Listener and special callsigns

A listener callsign is built quite differently: US, the region letter and a serial number — for example US-L-218.

Special callsigns (the EM, EN and EO series) are issued for anniversaries, expeditions and major events. Some of them even carry geography: Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions operate with callsigns in the EM1 series.

⚠️ Callsign structure is governed by a separate instrument, and the classes in it have been renamed over the years. The above describes the principle; as always, check against the document currently in force.

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Next — chapter 3, martial law: which of this applies today.