Made-up callsigns (was: WBZ-TV News on WSBK...)

[hmglaz@webtv.net (Howard Glazer)]

I was attending Syracuse University when WJPZ was founded -- a
tight-format student Top 40 station for pragmatic radio majors who
realized that stations in the real world don't let you bring in your own
records and ramble on about the artists. The station started as a
carrier current operation at 1200 KHz. The callsign was thought up by
the station manager and used with no authority at all. The station later
went Part 15, on the same frequency. Several years later, it became a
fully licensed FM station, at 89.1 (IIRC) and got the same call it had
been using since its carrier-current inception. I wonder if any other
stations can make the same claim.

My brother, attending Ithaca College a decade later, worked at a Part 15
operation called WVIC (Voice of Ithaca College), also unlicensed. But
the station got a letter from the real WVIC (in Michigan) asking them to
cease and desist, and they did, becoming just "VIC." (Before the change,
they actually used KVIC for a few hours, becoming their West Coast
"sister station" for a few hours to escape the dreary Ithaca winter.)
The station is still on the air, still Part 15, and is known as "106
VIC."

Oh, and the Wallingford, Conn., cable TV system, now in the hands of
AT&T, has carried WPS-TV (Wallingford Public Schools) and WPL-TV
(Wallingford Public Library) for many years. Guess that's how they
snagged the three-letter calls:)

Howard