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

Muke Tever scripsit:
> From: "Padraic Brown" <pbrown@...>
> > On Sun, 15 Jul 2001 bjm10@CORNELL.EDU wrote:
> >
> > >Callsigns are assigned by the FCC (part of the US
> > >federal government) and are not handed out on the whim of the recipient.
> >
> > I doubt that WABC was arbitrarily assigned to the American
> > Broadcasting Corporation's station in NYC. [...]
>
> Hehe.  And UT Chattanooga has WUTC, and my school SAU, formerly SMC, has
> WSMC.  I don't know of any other local stations so transparently lettered,
> though.
Indeed, the FCC will assign a station any four-letter sequence it wants
(beginning with K or W), provided it is not assigned at the time.  The
rules kick in only if the station has no preference.

I was wrong to state that originally the U.S. had only K and W was added
later.  The K/W distinction goes back to 1911, when the
Bureau of Navigation was handing out three-letter codes for ship
wireless stations: K was used for Atlantic ships and W (presumably
"west") for Pacific ones.  Nobody remembers why the distinction
got flipflopped for land stations.

KDKA Pittsburgh is not a survival of a universal K area.
For several months in 1920-21, K prefixes were being given to all
stations, for no known reason.  A few other stations were licensed
with KD prefixes at that time, but later died.
(At that time, KA-KC belonged to Germany, not the U.S.)

These and many other details at http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/recap.htm .

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter