Re: CHAT: Names of radiostations (was: Re: The young Tolkien)

Taliesin wrote:
>What's the deal with the four-letter codenames for US radio-stations?
>What happens when all possible four-letter combinations have been used,
>will everyone switch to 5 letter ones? In Yooroop (the pieces of it
>that I've been to at least), radio-stations got real names, nicknames
>and short forms/abbreviations.

Well, there are some three-letter names too, generally of long-established
stations.
Where the use of letters came from in the first place, I don't know,
however.
Somewhere along the way, it was decreed that stations EAST of the
Mississippi should begin with W, those to the West with K-- but there are a
few exceptions:  KDKA in Pittsburgh (actually IIRC one of the very first
commercial stations), WOW (or is it WHO; long time since I heard it) in
Omaha; or WCCO Minneapolis, which is _on_ but mostly West of the Miss..  I
suppose if necessary we could divide the country into three or more regions,
with maybe Z,X,Q etc.  prefix.....Or, as we've had to do with telephone
exchanges, go to all-numeric.

I'm not sure, but it might be possible for 2  stations to have the same call
letters, IF they are widely separated  e.g. WUOM (the Univ. of Michigan),
perhaps WUOM (Univ. of Miami, Florida)???   For FM stations, especially,
there's little danger of their signals' interfering.

If I'm not mistaken, until recently, most radio in Europe was state-run, so
perhaps there was less need for distinguishing names?   I recall many years
ago in England, you could hear BBC-1, 2 or 3. Period.

Replies