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

Whoops.. "reply" didnt send this to the list for some reason...


> I think there are something like 700 unique call-letter combinations (if
> I've done my math right, I don't remember much matrix theory from high
> school).
If the first letter can be K or W and the other three can be any of the 26
in the roman alphabet, then that would give 2 * 26 * 26 * 26 possible
combinations, shouldnt it? That's 35152 combinations for US radio stations.

> Most radio stations
> have some sort of catchy appellation, like "101X", or "98 Rock", two
> stations from the town I grew up in. All I listen to in Austin is KMFA
> 89.6, the classical station, and only in the car.
Most radio stations around here are know by their frequency (Planet Radio
96.5, 105.1, 88.7 (NPR out of U of Louisiana), etc) as much as by their
callletters.

> Even in the car, I'm
> usually listening to Tool on the CD player.

> The four-letter callsigns are part of a world-wide system; different
> nations have different initial letters, so that they will not
> collide.  For example, the U.K. has G, M, and 2 (the system is
> really alphanumeric), Canada has parts of C and V, Mexico has
> XA to XI, and Denmark has parts of O (letter) and 5. The number of
> letters and digits following the internationally assigned part is
> variable.
If the system is alphanumeric then that would give 36*36*36*36 (26 letters +
10 numerals) or 1679616 possible four character combinations.

Most ham radio operators seem to have around 6 letters.

Mathematically oriented people might want to double check this.


andy.

adchaney@louisiana.edu
http://adc.htmlplanet.com/