Call letter designation question

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 09:06:43 -0800 (PST), Bob Nelson <raccoonradio@yahoo.com> said:

> I thought that AM stations were technically just the
> call letters

> ...and FM stations were designated by the suffix -FM
> ONLY if there is already an AM with those calls

No.

There are no ``suffixes'' in the rules.  Stations may have three-,
four-, five-, or six-letter callsigns.  No two stations may have the
same callsign, but multiple transmitters of the same station, under
the same license, may have the same callsign (seen mostly among
shortwave stations, but theoretically also DTVs).  In stations which
have five- or six-letter callsigns, the last two letters may be "FM"
for an FM station, "TV" for a TV station, or "LP" for a low-power FM
or TV station.  AM stations may only have three- or four-letter
callsigns.  The hyphen is not officially part of the callsign.

> WBCN (since there is, as far as I know, no WBCN on the
> AM dial)

No.  It's WBCN because they chose a four-letter callsign.  There is
nothing in the rules preventing them from being WBCN-FM, if they had
so chosen.  Either way, Viacom could choose to permit another station
to adopt the callsign WBCNTV or WBCNLP if they were suitably
motivated.  However, even with their permission, another station could
not adopt the callsign WBCNFM.  But, if the current WBCN were to
become WBCN-FM, then an AM or TV station could use WBCN as a
four-letter call.

The rules in Canada are much simpler: all FM stations are
Csomething-FM, and all TV stations are Csomething-TV, implicitly.

> I would think that if, say, a newspaper were to
> mention an AM station and point out their frequency as
> well, they could do it thusly:

> "WEEI (AM) 850" or "WEEI (AM 850)"
> instead of "WEEI-AM (850)"...

The AP style guide, IIRC, gives the latter format.

-GAWollman

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wollman@lcs.mit.edu  | generation can invoke its principles in their own
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