[BC] Re: Call-letter curiosities

[Alan Kline]

At 01:35 PM 5/20/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>Wonder why so many three letter stations began with "WH."  
>WHA, WHB, WHK, WHN, WHO, WHP.  A few with "WI" too, WIL, WIP 
>and WIS.

Sequential assignments, I would suspect.  The practice of the Department
of Commerce in the very early days, IIRC, was simply to assign calls in
sequence as licenses were issued, unless the applicant made a specific
request. There was one sequence for marine and broadcast stations. For
example, if memory serves, KDKA was issued just before a ship received 
the call KDKB.

OTOH, WGN was *not* a sequential assignment, since it had previously
been WDAP.  Same with KOY Phoenix, originally KFCB.

There were a number of permutations to the policy, and Tom White's 
essays, linked from oldradio.com, explain them very, very well.

ak


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"The Sun Always Shines on the Hawkeye Marching Band--except when it rains...
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Alan Kline, KN0H
akline at netins.net or kn0h at arrl.net (home)

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