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How to verify a ham radio call sign online
On the air, your call sign is your identity. Online, it's just text anyone can type. Here's why that's a problem, and how to prove a call sign is yours once and use it everywhere.
A lookup isn't proof
Licence data is public. Anyone can look up a call sign in the FCC's database, on QRZ.com or on HamCall and see that it exists, who it's issued to, and where they live. That confirms the call sign is real. It says nothing about whether the person typing it into a website is the person it belongs to.
So most ham radio sites and apps run on the honour system: you sign up with an email address and type your call sign, and the site takes your word for it. Some go further and email or mail something to prove it, each in its own way, and you go through it again for every site.
The postcard test
The one thing an impersonator can't do is receive your mail. Your licence lists a mailing address, and only you get the post there. So the most dependable way to prove a call sign is to send a one-time code to that address and ask for it back. It's the same idea behind the postcards some ham radio services, like Logbook of The World, mail before trusting a call sign.
Verify once, use everywhere
Verified Ham does the postcard test once, and then any app or website can rely on it:
- Create an account with your email address and a passkey.
- Enter your call sign. We look it up in the FCC (US) or ISED (Canada) licence data.
- We mail a postcard with a code to your licensed address. It costs $3.00, for printing and postage.
- Enter the code when it arrives. Your call sign is verified.
From then on, sites that support "Sign in with Verified Ham" know your call sign is really yours, without asking you to prove it again. And because every verified call sign is re-checked against new licence data, that stays true: a lapsed licence or a reassigned call sign is caught automatically.
Show it off
Once verified, you can publish a verified page and add a badge to your website or QRZ.com bio that links to it, so anyone can check.