Greg and Joan wrote:

A few in our area -

WNBP = Newburyport, 1450 AM = NBP, obvious
WBOQ = Gloucester, replaced WVCA (Voice of Cape Ann), WBOQ orignally was
an all classical station and the BOQ was to represent "Bach".
WCCM = Haverhill, 1490 AM. The station was orignally at 800 khz in
Lawrence. "CCM" was supposed to somehow represent "800" in Roman numerals.
It's a stretch.
WLLH = Lawrence and Lowell (two synchronous transmitters at 1400 am) =
Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, but Haverhill never got a transmitter
WPAA-FM, Andover - Phillips Andover Academy, a low-power class D that's
still on the air

.

WPFB AM & FM in Middletown, Ohio was owned by Paul F Bradeon, and
another station he owned was WPBF so it is rather obvious he used his
initials.

--
Beware of those who suffer from delusions of adequacy!

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
Greg and Joan wrote:

A few in our area -

WNBP = Newburyport, 1450 AM = NBP, obvious
WBOQ = Gloucester, replaced WVCA (Voice of Cape Ann), WBOQ
orignally was
an all classical station and the BOQ was to represent "Bach".
WCCM = Haverhill, 1490 AM. The station was orignally at 800 khz
in
Lawrence. "CCM" was supposed to somehow represent "800" in Roman
numerals.
It's a stretch.
WLLH = Lawrence and Lowell (two synchronous transmitters at 1400
am) =
Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, but Haverhill never got a
transmitter
WPAA-FM, Andover - Phillips Andover Academy, a low-power class D
that's
still on the air

.

WPFB AM & FM in Middletown, Ohio was owned by Paul F Bradeon, and
another station he owned was WPBF so it is rather obvious he used
his
initials.

WMAL - Washington, DC - for the M A Lease Optical Company They sold
the station to NBC in the 1930s, but the call persists to this day.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

WPFB AM & FM in Middletown, Ohio was owned by Paul F Bradeon, and
another station he owned was WPBF so it is rather obvious he used his
initials.

I could offer tons more, but isn't someone collecting these and putting them on
a website, or am I not recalling correctly?


--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"In case anyone was wondering, that big glowing globe above the Victor
Valley is the sun." -Victorville _Daily Press_ on the unusually large
amount of rain the Southland has gotten this winter (January 12th, 2005)

Steve Sobol wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

WPFB AM & FM in Middletown, Ohio was owned by Paul F Bradeon, and
another station he owned was WPBF so it is rather obvious he used his
initials.

I could offer tons more, but isn't someone collecting these and putting them on
a website, or am I not recalling correctly?

Steven J. Sobol

Sorry, but I stumbled across this thread and just added a couple
calls that I knew about. I'm disabled now, but I was a radio and TV
broadcast engineer in the '70s, '80s and '90s

As far as someone creating a website, I like the idea. Btw, WSM in
Nashville claims it means "We Shield Millions" because it was started by
an insurance company.

A local Christian TV station bought an existing low power station in
Lake county Florida. The call letters were WIYE so they cam up with "We
Inspire You Everyday" Later, they went full power and changed their
call to WACX for "ACTS TV" because it was as close as they could get to
what they wanted.

My first job in radio was at the 980 Khz AFRN station at Ft Greely,
AK in '73 and '74. It was 95 percent tube equipment and had a really
worn out Gates BC250 transmitter that was patched together by countless
emergency repairs that were never done right. The studio was a real
dump, and over the years someone had put layer after layer of house
paint on the audio board and some of the other equipment. It was a case
study in how not to do radio or TV.

We also had a 500 watt B&W TV station on Ch 8 that was a joke. A lot
of equipment failures that put it off the air every night and the
typical military attitude of not letting yo fix a problem, and not
allowing any downtime. Those were the days!


--
Beware of those who suffer from delusions of adequacy!

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Followups set to rrb only, because I don't know how applicable this is to
shortwave.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Steve Sobol wrote:

I could offer tons more, but isn't someone collecting these and putting them on
a website, or am I not recalling correctly?

Steven J. Sobol


Sorry

No, don't be! I was just curious, because we have this discussion once every
year or two. In fact, I'll add some...

A local Christian TV station bought an existing low power station in
Lake county Florida. The call letters were WIYE so they cam up with "We
Inspire You Everyday" Later, they went full power and changed their
call to WACX for "ACTS TV" because it was as close as they could get to
what they wanted.

WSVN Channel 7 Miami, Florida. WSYX Channel 6 Columbus, Ohio. WTHR Channel 13,
Indianapolis, Indiana. WFOR Channel 4 Miami. And WFOR used to be WCIX Channel 6...

WEWS-TV 5 Cleveland, Ohio, owned by Scripps-Howard and one of the first TV
stations in the country. Callsign stands for "Edward W. Scripps."

WOIO Channel 19 Cleveland. I've never asked but I always assume the calls stand
for "Ohio."

WXIX Channel 19 Cincinnati, Ohio. XIX is the Roman numeral 19.

WIII Channel 64 Cincinnati. "The Eyes of Cincinnati." (Eyes... I's... heh...
someone had a rather cheesy sense of humor.)

W-One and W-Two: WONE-AM 980 Dayton, Ohio and WONE-FM 97.5 Akron, Ohio, and
WTUE-104.7 Dayton. All used to be owned by Summit Broadcasting. Clear Channel
now owns the Dayton stations and a local broadcaster, Rubber City Radio, owns
WONE-FM in Akron.

WLQT 99.9 Dayton used to be WVUD, broadcasting from Kennedy Union at the
University of Dayton. WVUD was the "Voice of UD" and was licensed to the
university until 1993 when the station was sold to Clear Channel.

Incidentally - I didn't realize this until doing a Google search, but the
University of Dayton campus radio station (where I used to do an airshift that
you could almost hear in the dorms if you were lucky) has hit the airwaves.
WDCR used to be carrier-current only. Now they're WUDR-99.5/98.1... "The
Udder". (no, I'm not kidding, see for yourself: http://flyer-radio.udayton.edu/)

WEOL-AM 930, Lorain County, Ohio, serving Elyria, Oberlin and Lorain.
WELW-AM 1330, Lake County, Ohio, serving Eastlake and Willoughby.

There was a Christian radio station on 1260 for a while in Cleveland, with the
calls WRDZ ("Words"). (It's now Radio Disney.)

How about WZAK-93.1 Cleveland, currently owned by Radio One but previously the
flagship station for Cleveland-owned Zapis Communications.

And WJW-TV 8 Cleveland, which became WJKW for a number of years in the 80s
after it was sold to a different company from the one that owned WJW-AM 850,
and then became WJW again after WJW-AM was sold and changed calls. Not notable,
except that they were allowed to go back to three-letter calls. I'm not sure
how that happened, or if a lot of strings had to be pulled to make it happen.

In the area where I now live, KHWY 98.9 Essex, CA. Part of the "Highway Radio"
group of stations catering to people driving the highways between SoCal and
Laughlin, NV, and SoCal and Las Vegas. (KHWY is on the way to Laughlin.)

I'm sure I'll come up with some more later...

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"In case anyone was wondering, that big glowing globe above the Victor
Valley is the sun." -Victorville _Daily Press_ on the unusually large
amount of rain the Southland has gotten this winter (January 12th, 2005)

Steve Sobol wrote:

Followups set to rrb only, because I don't know how applicable this is to
shortwave.

Cleveland stations:

WNCX -- "North Coast"
WCLV -- "Cleveland"
WUAB -- "United Artists Broadcasting"
WKBF -- "Kaiser Broadcasting" (looong defunct)

others, that I'd have to think on -- I haven't lived in Cleveland in
15 years.

--
Eric F. Richards

"The weird part is that I can feel productive even when I'm doomed."
- Dilbert

There are some that I came upon:
WGY 810 kHz, Schenectady, NY "G" for General Electric, "Y" last letter in
Schenectady.
KGO 810 kHz, San Francisco, CA "G" for GE, "O" last letter in San
Francisco. GE owned both stations many years ago.
WROW 590 kHz, Albany, NY "Row!" (like a dog growling) "Watchdog of the
Capital District".
WPTR 1540 kHz, Albany, NY (back in the 1960s), Patroon Broadcasting Corp.
WROV 1240 kHz, Roanoke, VA (back before 1990s) "RO" for Roanoke, "V" for
Virginia.
WSLS 610 kHz, Roanoke, VA (Before 1980), Shenandoah Life (insurance) Station
WQBA 1140 kHz, Miami, FL (Spanish speaking) Q, pronounced "coo", BA as in
"bah". Said together, it is "Cuba" as said in Spanish.

On 23 Feb 2005 03:24:41 GMT, "Blue Cat" wrote:

There are some that I came upon:
WGY 810 kHz, Schenectady, NY "G" for General Electric, "Y" last letter in
Schenectady.
KGO 810 kHz, San Francisco, CA "G" for GE, "O" last letter in San
Francisco. GE owned both stations many years ago.
WROW 590 kHz, Albany, NY "Row!" (like a dog growling) "Watchdog of the
Capital District".
WPTR 1540 kHz, Albany, NY (back in the 1960s), Patroon Broadcasting Corp.
WROV 1240 kHz, Roanoke, VA (back before 1990s) "RO" for Roanoke, "V" for
Virginia.
WSLS 610 kHz, Roanoke, VA (Before 1980), Shenandoah Life (insurance) Station
WQBA 1140 kHz, Miami, FL (Spanish speaking) Q, pronounced "coo", BA as in
"bah". Said together, it is "Cuba" as said in Spanish.


WEAF (later WNBC, WRCA and WFAN) was next in sequence after the call
letters that the FCC originally offered and the owners rejected -
WDAM.

WEVD (now WEPN) stood for Eugene V. Debs, the labor union leader who
helped found the Socialist Party and was jailed for criticizing World
War I.

WCFL (I'm not sure what that is now) was Chicago Federation of Labor

WLS (then owned by Sears) was the World's Largest Store

KYW doesn't stand for anything but it has an interesting migratory
history, having originated in Chicago, then Philadelphia, Cleveland
and back to Philadelphia.

WJZ is another call associated with AT&T and Westinghouse which has
done some migration. Originally the NBC Blue Network (later ABC) call
in New York, it is now the call for the Westinghouse (later CBS) TV
station in Baltimore.

I don't think you can actually buy a call from one station to use on
another station but Ted Turner bribed the MIT student radio station
WTBS (Technology Broadcasting System) to change its call to WMBR so
that the call WTBS would become available to his TV station.

Also, are there any sets of calls in which the AM/FM and TV stations
are hundreds of miles apart other than for KCBS?

KCBS is in San Francisco. KCBS-TV (originally KNXT, from KNX for the
Los Angeles Evening Express) and KCBS-TV are in Los Angeles.

Joel Rubin wrote:
On 23 Feb 2005 03:24:41 GMT, "Blue Cat" wrote:


There are some that I came upon:
WGY 810 kHz, Schenectady, NY "G" for General Electric, "Y" last letter in
Schenectady.
KGO 810 kHz, San Francisco, CA "G" for GE, "O" last letter in San
Francisco. GE owned both stations many years ago.
WROW 590 kHz, Albany, NY "Row!" (like a dog growling) "Watchdog of the
Capital District".
WPTR 1540 kHz, Albany, NY (back in the 1960s), Patroon Broadcasting Corp.
WROV 1240 kHz, Roanoke, VA (back before 1990s) "RO" for Roanoke, "V" for
Virginia.
WSLS 610 kHz, Roanoke, VA (Before 1980), Shenandoah Life (insurance) Station
WQBA 1140 kHz, Miami, FL (Spanish speaking) Q, pronounced "coo", BA as in
"bah". Said together, it is "Cuba" as said in Spanish.



WEAF (later WNBC, WRCA and WFAN) was next in sequence after the call
letters that the FCC originally offered and the owners rejected -
WDAM.

WEVD (now WEPN) stood for Eugene V. Debs, the labor union leader who
helped found the Socialist Party and was jailed for criticizing World
War I.

WCFL (I'm not sure what that is now) was Chicago Federation of Labor

The WCFL refered to above is now WMVP and is owned by ABC and is
ESPN Radio
WLS (then owned by Sears) was the World's Largest Store

Also in Chicago, there is WMBI, Moody Bible Institute
WGN which stands for Worlds Greatest Newspaper (Chicago Tribune)
WIND does not stand for Windy City, but stands for Indiana where it was
first licensed.
Downstate in Champaign-Urbana, IL there is WILL which is licensed to the
University of Illinois and stands for Illinois.

In South Bend Indiana WSBT stands for South Bend Tribune and
WNDU (now only TV) stands for Notre Dame University who owns it
through a commercial subsidiary.

KYW doesn't stand for anything but it has an interesting migratory
history, having originated in Chicago, then Philadelphia, Cleveland
and back to Philadelphia.

WJZ is another call associated with AT&T and Westinghouse which has
done some migration. Originally the NBC Blue Network (later ABC) call
in New York, it is now the call for the Westinghouse (later CBS) TV
station in Baltimore.

I don't think you can actually buy a call from one station to use on
another station but Ted Turner bribed the MIT student radio station
WTBS (Technology Broadcasting System) to change its call to WMBR so
that the call WTBS would become available to his TV station.

Also, are there any sets of calls in which the AM/FM and TV stations
are hundreds of miles apart other than for KCBS?

There is an AM & FM in Michigan that are about 175 miles apart.
WKLZ-AM, Kalamazoo and WKLZ-FM, Petosky. They are not commonly owned.

KCBS is in San Francisco. KCBS-TV (originally KNXT, from KNX for the
Los Angeles Evening Express) and KCBS-TV are in Los Angeles.


Early call letters and their meanings can be found at the top of the
page at Jeff Miller's Broadcasting History site at
http://members.aol.com/jeff560/jeff.html

Charlie

--
To respond by Email remove never- from address

Joel Rubin wrote:
Also, are there any sets of calls in which the AM/FM and TV stations
are hundreds of miles apart other than for KCBS?

KCBS is in San Francisco. KCBS-TV (originally KNXT, from KNX for the
Los Angeles Evening Express) and KCBS-TV are in Los Angeles.

Yep: for one example, WWVA-AM in Wheeling, West Virginia: WWVA-FM in an
Atlanta suburb. There are other examples.

But to the best of my knowledge, KCBS was the *first* station to "split"
their calls like that.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com