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

From:Andrew Chaney <adchaney@...>
Date:Friday, July 13, 2001, 1:35
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/