Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Perhaps someone can answer a question I've wondered about for years. Why do American radio stations have these odd names consisting just of letters and numbers? Do they have some obscure meaning? I see that this one of Wood's has "NYC" in its name, but most of the ones I hear referred to on American TV shows have names which seem to consist of pretty random sets of letters.
In the UK, radio stations have names that generally tell you either where they are (eg "Radio Manchester") or what kind of music they play ("Jazz FM", "Classic FM").
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In the United States, broadcast stations have call signs between three and six characters in length, though the minimum length for new stations is four letters. An additional suffix may also be added, indicating a specific broadcast service type. Full-power stations receive four-letter call signs, while broadcast translator stations usually receive call signs with five or six characters, including two or three numbers. Generally, call signs begin with K west of the Mississippi River, and W to the east.
New full-power stations were formerly assigned sequential call signs if the permittee does not choose one of their own; these were always four letters, of which the third was the least-significant digit and the second was the most-significant digit of the sequence number. (Callsigns which were already assigned are skipped in the sequence.) Hence, many very early stations, like WMAQ Chicago (now WSCR) and WMAF Round Hill, South Dartmouth (now defunct) were assigned W-A- or K-A-) call signs. The current FCC rules require a permittee to explicitly select a callsign before putting a station on the air for the first time. Prior to that time, permits for new stations are either listed simply as NEW, or referenced by the file number of the original application, in the FCC's public records.
Short call signs
In the 1920s, many stations were assigned three-letter call signs; these have been grandfathered under the current system, even though many such stations have changed owners. Such stations include KOA in Denver, Colorado, WGN in Chicago, Illinois, and WRR in Dallas, Texas. (WRR is an unusual case in that the call sign was moved from the original AM station to a commonly owned FM station, formerly WRR-FM, before the AM was sold.) The Federal Communications Commission for many years maintained a policy of "drop it and lose it forever" with respect to three-letter call signs, but recently allowed KKHJ (930 Los Angeles) to reclaim its historic three-letter call, KHJ.
The FCC allows FM and TV stations under common ownership with a three-letter AM or FM in the same market to use five-letter (three plus –FM or –TV suffix) call signs; for example, KGO-TV in San Francisco or WMC-FM in Memphis. In some cases, such as WIL-FM in St. Louis, the five-letter callsign may outlive the three-letter call sign on which it is based. There is also the unusual case of Baltimore's WJZ-TV, which was allowed to adopt the call sign despite the fact that there was no longer a WJZ radio; when there was, it wasn't in Baltimore; and it hadn't been owned by the same company since the 1920s. Stations which have been "conformed" in this manner may keep the five-letter call sign even after they are no longer co-owned with the "parent" station (although this was not the case prior to the mid-1980s).
Extremely early call signs used in the 1910s and into the early 1920s were arbitrary. The U.S. government began requiring stations to use three-letter call signs around 1912, but they could be chosen at random. KDKA initially broadcast as 8XK before gaining its well-known letters in 1920. The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC of San Jose, California used the call sign 6KZ.
K and W
New broadcasting stations are assigned call signs beginning with K, if they are west of the Mississippi River, and beginning with W if they are east of the river. Again, some early stations have been grandfathered, so there are four broadcasters with a K prefix east of the Mississippi, and a few dozen with a W on the west side. (There are more grandfathered W stations because the dividing line used to be two states farther west.) Some examples would be KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, KYW in Philadelphia, and WACO in Waco, Texas, which also has the distinction of being one of only two radio stations whose call sign is the same as its community of license. Stations located near the Mississippi River may have either letter, depending on the precise location of their community of license and on historical contingencies. Metro areas with mixed W and K stations because of proximity to the river include Minneapolis-St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Quad Cities. The Duluth-Superior area, well east of the river but on the Minnesota/Wisconsin line, has stations using both K and W.
The FCC allows derived call signs in the same market as a commonly-owned AM or FM without respect of the boundary, so stations may establish common branding across bands and services. One famous example was the case of the former KWK in St. Louis, which after several petitions was permitted to change the call sign of its sister FM station in Granite City, Illinois, then WWWK(FM), to KWK-FM. Later, the AM would change its call sign and the FM became KWK(FM), thereby becoming an exemplar of both categories of grandfathered stations.
The assignment of K and W prefixes applies only to stations in the broadcast radio and television services; it does not apply to weather radio, highway advisory radio, or time signal stations, even though these are all broadcasts in the usual sense of the word, nor does it apply to auxiliary licenses held by broadcast stations, such as studio-transmitter links and inter-city relay stations.
For example, the time signal stations WWV and WWVH are located in Colorado and Hawaii, respectively. (WWV originally began in Maryland and was later moved west. However, even ignoring that fact, U.S. government-owned stations are overseen by the NTIA and not the FCC, and are thus not subject to the FCC's rules on call signs; most do not have call signs at all.)
NOAA Weather Radio stations clustered between 162.4 and 162.55 MHz have call signs consisting of a K or W followed by two or three letters, and two digits. The K and W prefixes are both used interchangeably on both sides of the Mississippi River (e.g., KHB36 in Washington, D.C. and WXK25 in El Paso, Texas).
Highway advisory radio stations scattered throughout the AM band use call signs consisting of K and W followed by two or three letters and three digits. Stations operated by the Federal Government have a vowel as the second character, while stations operated by a state or local government entity have a consonant as the second character. As with weather radio, K and W calls are both used on both sides of the Mississippi River.