[BC] WHP

[Scott Fybush]

> Wasn't there a newspaper in Harrisburg named the Press? And didn't the
> newspaper own WHP at one time? If that's correct, WHP was most likely a
> requested call sign. And if so, its history is different from that of WHA,
> WHB, WHK, WHN , WHO et al. I can believe that there were quite a few
> four-letter sequentially assigned calls that began with WHA. A few that
> are
> still in use are WHAM, WHAS, WHAT, and WHAZ. I know that WHAZ has had the
> same calls since it signed on in 1922. More than likely, that is also true
> of WHAM, WHAS, and WHAT. I think there is also a WHAG, but I imagine that
> the current WHAG was not part of the original WHAx sequence.

WHAM was not a sequential assignment, either. The Rochester Times-Union
put WHQ on the air (on 360 meters, of course) in March 1922, but it was a
disaster from the beginning. The steel frame of the Times-Union building
(atop which the station's antenna was mounted) was apparently resonant at
360 meters and absorbed much of the signal, and WHQ was off the air by
May, at which point George Eastman bought the equipment and moved it over
to the Eastman Theater.

Eastman liked catchy names (like, for instance, "Kodak"), and he thought
"WHAM" would be a nifty thing to call a radio station, and so it has been
from July 11, 1922 until now.

In any event, a careful reading of the Thomas White material (which is
just part of the wonderful collection of material at oldradio.com)
suggests that in many cases, even sequential calls didn't advance in
strict alphabetical order (WAAZ followed by WABA, for instance), but that
it was sometimes the second or third letter that advanced. Thomas explains
it better than I could, though, so go look at oldradio.com...

s