WCVT (101.7 Stowe, VT)

[Dan.Strassberg]

I was there (New York City) in 1947 and I distinctly remember WABD
(the TV calls from that era that--I think--survived the longest),
WCBW, and WNBT. But I have no memory of WNBW. The fascinating (to me)
thing about WNBT is that, after their run of several years in Gotham
City, those calls next surfaced on a Class IV AM 1490 in bucolic
Wellsboro, in the mountains of northwestern PA. Apparently, they found
a good home there because, according to CDBS, 60 or so years later,
they still reside there. I remember being in Wellsboro, probably
around 1950. It was after sundown and, as you might imagine, it was
very, very quiet. I spotted the flashing red lights of the AM tower
atop a hill not far from the center of town and I persuaded my parents
to join me on a walk up there. I don't know whether the FCC yet
allowed remote-controlled operation of AM transmitting facilities but
it did not appear that there was a soul around. Maybe the little Class
IVs (then maxed out at 250W-U and all ND-U) were allowed remote
control before more powerful stations--many of them directional at
least part of the time--were granted the privilege.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 1:36 AM
Subject: Re: WCVT (101.7 Stowe, VT)


> On 12/13/2011 12:29 AM, A Joseph Ross wrote:
>
>> It occurs to me that those original FM calls must have caused a lot
>> of
>> trouble. If a station was on the same channel in Boston and in
>> Buffalo,
>> or Baltimore, or Binghamton, or ..., they would have had to have
>> the
>> same callsign. Would the FCC do that or would they avoid certain
>> frequency assignments in order to avoid duplication of calls? If FM
>> had
>> grown more than it did in those days, that could have been a
>> considerable headache.
>
> It was a terrible system, really - imagine the poor New Yorkers
> trying to differentiate between "W67NY" and "W71NY" and "W75NY"!
>
> There were at least some two-letter suffixes - Binghamton was W49BN,
> for instance, but the system would not have scaled up very well, for
> sure.
>
> And getting back to Garrett's earlier note about the TV calls, I
> think the start of the "-TV" suffix can be dated to 1947. Everything
> before that (which was only eight or so stations) had a separate
> four-letter call (WNBT, WCBW, WNBW, WABD, etc.); February 1947
> marked the start of KSD-TV in St. Louis, followed quickly by WGN-TV,
> KOB-TV, WFIL-TV and others.
>
> s