What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? An experience on a local mailing list this week made me consciously consider for the first time that I am a member of a community in Amateur Radio. Now this might sound completely obvious to you, but consider this, Amateur Radio as we know it today has been around for over 100 years. I've just downloaded the first Annual Official Wireless Blue Book, updated to May of 1909. It's a call book. You'd recognise it instantly. In it's 19 pages it lists call-signs, locations and transmission power, even allocated wavelengths in the United States and Canada. It also contains a hand-written list of updates and annotations as well as sponsorship announcements for Modern Electrics and the Electro Importing Company with a list of Wireless goods that will "make you sit up and take notice." I've been playing and working with computers for several decades. My first computer was a Commodore VIC 20, in 1982 I was the first person in my class to own their own computer. That's nearly three deca