RE: Made-up callsigns

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net>]

> Beware of legends about call letters, however.  Many stations
> took randomly
> (and sequentially) assigned calls and insisted they stood for
> something,
> when in fact the so-called meaning was added much later.
<snip>

Formerly discussed here, the WCAP (980 Lowell) history reads much the
same way.  The late Israel "Ike" Cohen took the available calls in 1951
"because I liked them."  When Ike worked in New York as a tech at WHN he
had heard the then WCAP ("City at Palisades Par").  He recounted they
were previously Chespeake and Potomic Railway in the DC area.  You gotta
think the calls would fit in well with, ironically, 980 Washington
(WWDC) and 980 Troy, NY in the "Capital" district.

Few stations rely on "calls" recognition any longer anyway.  Is it
"tested" that more people warm up to an "Oldies 97" or "Mix 106"
monniker?  Often, calls are relegated to buried legals at :49.

Bill O'Neill