While wandering through the Upper Midwest.

[Kevin Vahey]

That should read moving to FM

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:53 AM, Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com> wrote:

> This article I linked to mention's KOP.
>
> http://earlyradiohistory.us/kwtrivia.htm
>
> Is CBW in danger of being moved to AM?  I didn't realize until being sent
> there just how isolated Winnipeg is. Edmonton and Calgary are both 850
> miles away, Toronto 1300 and Minneapolis is closest at 450.
>
> We did notice on 1290 that the TSN sportsflash person just 'You're
> listening to TSN Radio on CHUM, CKGM and CFRW' which was the only mention
> of call signs.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 1:44 AM, Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com> wrote:
>
>> Garrett wrote--
>>
>>  As I said, the boundary used to follow the western border of Texas.
>>> That explains all the W calls in Texas, not to mention the other
>>> states I mentioned above.  The original boundary made geographic sense
>>> because ships in the Atlantic used K callsigns, and ships in the
>>> Pacific used W callsigns -- the Bureau of Navigation's scheme was that
>>> shore stations serving the Atlantic (which could be as far west as
>>> Texas) would get W callsigns, and shore stations serving the Pacific
>>> would get K callsigns, the opposite of the assignment for ships.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> And even as far back as 1922, the W and K rule was not followed exactly.
>>  The first station in Alaska was WLAY (not KLAY).  Given that some of the
>> early call letters came from ships at sea which had sunk (and the next ship
>> didn't want those call letters, thinking them bad luck), the Department of
>> Commerce did not always follow logic when handing out call letters to the
>> new commercial radio stations.  And sometimes, there was a requested call
>> with a K (such as the early Police radio station KOP) and the K got
>> assigned even though the station was located in Detroit and probably should
>> have gotten a W... somehow WOP would not have gotten the job done, I'd
>> imagine.
>>
>
>