RADIOMETEO · DXCC PREFIXES
DXCC prefixes: where is that callsign from?
Type a callsign and see straight away its DXCC entity, country, continent and CQ and ITU zones. Below is the table of all 340 active DXCC entities, to filter by name, prefix or continent.
340active DXCC entities
40CQ zones
90ITU zones
Look up a callsign
Works with portable callsigns too, such as F/IZ6CLV or IZ6CLV/P.
All DXCC entities
340 active entities with prefixes, continent, CQ and ITU zones and DXCC number.
How to read a callsign
Prefix, number and suffix: what each part tells you.
- The prefix
- The first letters (or letter and digit) show the country: prefix blocks are allocated to countries by the ITU. Examples: I and IZ for Italy, F for France, EA for Spain, K, N and W for the United States.
- The number
- The digit after the prefix usually shows the area of the country. Sometimes it also changes the DXCC entity: EA8 is the Canary Islands, not Spain; KH6 is Hawaii, not the continental United States.
- The suffix
- The final letters identify the single station: in IZ6CLV the suffix is CLV.
- Portable and mobile
- /P means portable, /M mobile, /MM maritime mobile. A prefix in front, as in F/IZ6CLV, means the station is operating from that country: the prefix’s entity counts, not the callsign’s.
Italian prefixes
The Italian call areas and special prefixes.
- Areas 1 to 0
- 1 Liguria and Piedmont · 2 Lombardy · 3 Veneto · 4 Emilia-Romagna · 5 Tuscany · 6 Marche and Abruzzo · 7 Apulia and the province of Matera · 8 Campania, Calabria, Molise and the province of Potenza · 9 Sicily · 0 Lazio and Umbria.
- Special prefixes
- IX1 Aosta Valley · IN3 Trentino-Alto Adige · IV3 Friuli-Venezia Giulia · IT9 Sicily · IS0 Sardinia · IM0 Sardinian islands · IA5 Tuscan islands · IC8 Campanian islands.
- Two DXCC entities
- For DXCC, Italy counts as two entities: Italy (I) and Sardinia (IS0 and IM0). Sicily (IT9) and the African islands (IG9, IH9) are Italy for DXCC, but count as separate entities for the WAE award.
- San Marino and Vatican
- They have their own prefixes and DXCC entities: T7 San Marino, HV Vatican City.
What DXCC is
Radio’s best-known award, founded in 1937.
- The award
- The DX Century Club is the ARRL award for confirming contacts with at least 100 different DXCC entities.
- What an entity is
- An entity is not always a country: distant islands or separate territories can count on their own, such as the Canary Islands, the Azores or Hawaii.
- Deleted entities
- When a territory changes political status the entity can be deleted: contacts made before still count in the deleted entities list.
- Confirmations
- Confirmations come from paper QSLs or LoTW. How to manage them is explained in Logbooks, QSL and awards.
Sources and tools
Where to check special cases.
- ARRL: entity and prefix list ↗
- The official DXCC list.
- dxcc-json (K0SWE) ↗
- Data used in the table, taken from the ARRL list. Apache 2.0 licence.
- Club Log ↗
- Exceptions for single callsigns and most wanted DXCC.
- DX Cluster
- Who is on the air right now.
- DXpeditions and special event stations
- Rare entities being activated now.
- Grid locator and distance
- Distance and bearing to the station.