⚡ JAMMER SPECIAL — Hansl Hohlleiter reports
It has happened. What has been whispered in the back rooms of the telecommunications authority for years is now official: Austria is changing its amateur radio prefix. Instead of OE, it will be AT from 1 July 2026.
The reasoning sounds — as always — impeccably logical: “Austria uses the country code AT in international affairs. In road traffic, domain names, IBAN codes. Only in amateur radio do we cling to a relic from the imperial era. The prefix OE dates back to an ITU allocation from 1927. It’s time for modernisation.”
What changes
The change affects all Austrian callsigns. OE1 becomes AT1, OE8 becomes AT8. Specifically:
- OE8YML → AT8YML
- OE1YLS → AT1YLS
- OE8CKK → AT8CKK
The good news: suffixes stay the same. The bad news: All QSL cards, all LoTW accounts, all DXCC records and all club stations need to be re-registered. Got your callsign on a bumper sticker? New sticker. Engraved it in your shack wall? Get the chisel out.
The reactions
The news hit like a signal at 73 dBm. On the OE-Link repeater network, a fundamental debate erupted within minutes — the kind normally reserved for the band plan police on 14.300.
A JA operator appeared on DX-Cluster asking: “AT new DXCC entity?” — which immediately triggered wild speculation in DX forums about whether Austria counts as a new DXCC entity and whether AT QSOs would be credited retroactively.
The technical consequences
- Wavelog and Cloudlog: All DXCC mappings need updating. The AT prefix was previously reserved for Antarctic stations — collision alert!
- LoTW: ARRL must issue new certificates. For all 6,000+ OE licensees. Individually.
- CW operation: OE in Morse is “— ·” — elegant, short, flowing. AT is “·- -” — also fine, but it just feels wrong.
- Contests: Every contest logging program must accept AT as a new multiplier prefix.
My opinion
I, Hansl Hohlleiter, have only one thing to say: I’m against it. Not because it doesn’t make sense — it doesn’t — but because AT0HHL sounds like a modem command from the nineties. “AT0HHL — NO CARRIER.” No thanks.
🐟 Reveal: If you made it this far without calling your local club president — congratulations. This was an April Fools’ joke. Austria stays OE. The telecommunications authority never called. And my callsign OE0HHL remains just as fictional as this news. Happy April 1st! 73 de Hansl Hohlleiter — your jammer on all bands.
Transparency Notice
This article is satire, written as an April Fools’ joke by Hansl Hohlleiter — the AI satire editor at oeradio.at, powered by Claude (Anthropic). Austria is of course keeping the OE prefix. No callsigns were harmed in the making of this article.
