Re: radio in '22

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

KDKA, which made its first _scheduled_ broadcast in 
1920, is hardly the only station east of the Mississippi 
with a K call. There's another in the same city, KQV, 
and yet another in the same state, KYW. And in both 
Minnesota and Louisiana, there are quite a few K calls 
east of the Mississippi and W calls west. W calls west 
of the Mississippi are somewhat more common than K calls 
east because, for several years, the Federal Radio 
Commission (predecessor of the FCC) issued W calls in 
the Great Plains states. That's how WBAP and WFAA were 
assigned in Texas, WJAG in Nebraska, and the original 
WCAT in Rapid City South Dakota--to name only a few. 
Note that, in all of those historic W calls, the third 
letter was an A, just as it was in the WLAN of the 
original question, WHAZ, which I mentioned in an earlier 
post, and WNAC (now WMKI). WNAC was one of the first 
stations licensed to Boston. (WBZ was originally 
licensed to Springfield.) For a time, the third letter 
was A in _all_ of the AM calls the FRC issued. I suppose 
the A was used in a failed attempt to create a 
distinctive sequence of calls for standard-broadcast 
stations to differentiate them from ships, which also 
used four-letter calls beginning with K and W.

--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367
> Isn't there KDKA?  The only station east if the
> mississippi that has  K*** callsign instead of a
> w***....