[BC] Re: Call-letter curiosities

[Jeffrey Kopp]

The call KING was originally assigned to a merchant ship. In 1947, Dorothy 
Bullitt "negotiated a swap for the call letters KING." 
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=677

I can't locate the name of the ship at the moment. I was surprised to find 
it still listed under that call in a maritime comms reference pub (which we 
carried, as required, in the radio shack aboard my ship) in the seventies.

There once was a time very early on when the call signs of ships lost at 
sea were retired or assigned to shore stations, in respect of marine 
tradition (i.e., sailors' superstition).