• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Call Letters

M

MarioMania

Just wondering, When a new station goes on the air or an radio station is already on the air changes calls, Do they pick it or does the FCC chose the calls??
 
MarioMania said:
Just wondering, When a new station goes on the air or an radio station is already on the air changes calls, Do they pick it or does the FCC chose the calls??
Click to expand...

The station picks them. They file a request, electronically.

For a few months about ten years ago, the FCC started assigning calls, sequentially, to construction permits. It didn't last very long. And the vast majority of the calls they assigned were changed by the station before it ever went on the air. In the early days of radio - until roughly the late-1920s - calls were also assigned sequentially by the government.

However, American Family Association licensed a pile of new religious stations during that period, and a lot of them did keep the sequential calls. Here in Tennessee, for example, WAMP/ WAUO/ WAUT/ WAUV/ WAWI/ WAZD.
 
There's an AM station in Medford, OR whose call letters is KGAY. Why this station chose these calls, I don't know. Several years ago, the previous calls was KTMT.

There's a station in NC called WEED, though I don't think it has to do with pot, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
ddsparxx said:
There's an AM station in Medford, OR whose call letters is KGAY. Why this station chose these calls, I don't know. Several years ago, the previous calls was KTMT.
Click to expand...

There was a WGAY in Washington for years. Had nothing to do with sexual orientation -- the owner's name was Connie Gay.

**I thought** there was a KGAY in Medford pre-WW2, but can't find it right now...
 
I originally thought WGAY's call letters meant the word gay's old meaning "merry, happy", when the station in DC was easy listening, but I later knew it stood for the last name of the station's founder.
 
Was KTMT somehow connected to the Portland-based development firm "Tom Moyer Theatres Inc."? Just wondering. Wouldn't surprise me given the kind of property assets the Moyer family had amassed throughout the years. ;o)

[size=8pt](In fact, old-timers might recognise TMT Inc. as being the eventual holding company of Tom Moyer Sr.'s notoriously crappy "Luxury Theatres" brand of movie theatres that existed mainly in OR & WA. After Act III bought out LT, TMT moved on to other projects [mainly developing strip malls and office complexes] but the company's name remains to this day.)
 
ddsparxx said:
There's a station in NC called WEED, though I don't think it has to do with pot, correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

That's AM 1390 in Rocky Mount, NC. I suspect these calls refer to the "golden weed" (tobacco), as it's growth, auctioning and manufacture were major across the region in days past. There are several stations around these parts with call letters referencing tobacco...

WTOB, Winston-Salem
WBTM, Danville (World's Best Tobacco Market)
WTIK, Durham (Where Tobacco Is King)
WETC, Wendell-Zebulon (We Entertain Tobacco Country)
WGTM, Wilson (World's Greatest Tobacco Market)
 
WVOT, Wilsons Voice Of Tobacco Home of the "Caronet" Radio Network
 
Stations are allowed to pick their call letters since many stations will pick something that sounds cool or that abbreviates something. Even back in the early days of AM, WOWO sounds like it was done on purpose.
 
spunker88 said:
Stations are allowed to pick their call letters since many stations will pick something that sounds cool or that abbreviates something. Even back in the early days of AM, WOWO sounds like it was done on purpose.
Click to expand...

Almost certainly. When the government was assigning calls sequentially back then, they started with A as the second letter (WBAA, WEAF, etc.) then B (WEBR, WFBL, etc.) and so on. They changed the policy long before reaching W.
 
Anyone know if the FCC allow(ed) wild cards for call letter change applications? Some stations, like WYJB in Albany, New York, seem to have gotten part of the call sign randomly.

Side note... anyone think we'll ever get to five-letter calls when/if we start to exhaust the four-letter calls? (I know it'll take a long time, as there's 35152 possible four-letter calls available. :p)
 
danikayser84 said:
Side note... anyone think we'll ever get to five-letter calls when/if we start to exhaust the four-letter calls? (I know it'll take a long time, as there's 35152 possible four-letter calls available. :p)
Click to expand...

Five-letter calls (not including 3-letter plus -FM, -TV, -DT, -LD, -LP, -CA, or -CD) are still officially allocated to aircraft in the FCC regs, despite the fact that these callsigns have not been assigned since before WW2. IIRC, the tail number of the aircraft (beginning with N in the US) is considered to be the plane's radio callsign.
 
Is there a list of calls that are not permitted? I doubt that anyone would use something like KRAP, or worse, but you never know.
 
LynnW said:
Is there a list of calls that are not permitted? I doubt that anyone would use something like KRAP, or worse, but you never know.
Click to expand...

We could start with the calls that were supposedly assigned by the FCC to the station at the University of North Texas...

I suspect we may have an urban legend here, but the story is that the university, unfamiliar with the procedures for requesting calls, did not request anything and someone in the FCC just looked to see if the school's initials were available and reserved them.
 
Scott Fybush said:
I think the story about UNT getting "those calls" is entirely apocryphal - but it's true that the KUNT-LP calls were granted to a low-power TV station in Hawaii a couple of years ago, which pretty much provides all the evidence you need that the FCC will grant anything these days.

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/07/26/business/engle.html
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that you're right. I remember when North Texas State University changed it's name to the University of North Texas. I subscribed to (and read) Broadcasting Magazine regularly at that time -- and no listing ever showed up in that magazine to change the call letters of their FM station (KNTU) in the aftermath of the school's name change.

It seems likely that when the school changed their name, they took a quick look at what the corresponding call letters for the station would be and chose to just leave well enough alone.
 
spunker88 said:
Stations are allowed to pick their call letters since many stations will pick something that sounds cool or that abbreviates something. Even back in the early days of AM, WOWO sounds like it was done on purpose.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Back in the early days, stations could either pick their own call letters (i.e. WGN = World's Greatest Newspaper, or WCCO = Washburn Crosby COmpany) or just get whatever call letters happened to be in sequence.

WOWO, licensed in 1925, stood for "(Fort) Wayne Offers Wonderful Opportunities"
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom