Given my recent success with the translation of cryptic notes found in a leather jacket, I thought I give this another try and ask my readers a question that has bugged me for the longest time.
So all those radio- and TV-stations start with a “K” in their abbreviation. As in KQED, KNME, KRON, etc. I’ve asked a number of people already what the “K” stands for, but nobody could give me an answer. I would research it on wikipedia, but I have no idea how to phrase a question that would lead me to the right answer.
Anybody out there knows what it is supposed to mean? Thanks in advance …
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I don’t think anybody still living knows:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010504.html
K and W were the international call signs assigned to the U.S. It’s C in Canada and X in Mexico. Generally, in the U.S. stations west of the Mississippi River were assigned K, those east of it W. There were some exceptions in the early years (WOAI in San Antonio is one).
I actually remembered that bit of trivia from some point in my past. I worked at the radio station in college, maybe I learned it there? Anyway, looked up my footnote before I saw the asnswer above.
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/general/kwtrivia.htm
http://nelson.oldradio.com/origins.html
More info here:
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/general/kwtrivia.htm
Found by googling “radio call letters” and digging around a bit.
Next, I suppose you’ll want to know why there are 360 degrees in a circle…
Wow – that’s a lot of good information in no time. Thanks to all of you who provided comments to solve this puzzle. Appreciate it!
dear readers:
i would like to know why does the letter “k” appear in some words like “know knife knight…”
and we don’t pronounce it
please if any one knows the answer
send it to me
Interesting question, Dr. Holms. I did a quick search and found the following, which seems to answer your questions:
http://www.aloveofwords.com/2009/08/26/knight-versus-night/
Cheers – Tobias
Back in the 1920s, when there were enough radio stations that governments decided it was time to step in and regulate them (to avoid having their signals devour each other), there was an international conference to set up a workable worldwide system, and unique station identifications for each nation were created. The USA was allocated ‘A’, ‘N’, ‘W’, and ‘K’ as the first letter in all station call-signs licensed in this country.
So far, commercial stations (AM. FM, TV) have been given call-signs beginning only with the ‘K’ and the ‘W’, but ham stations and other services get calls beginning with ‘A’ and ‘N’, in addition to ‘W’ and ‘K’.
To answer your question directly: The ‘W’ and ‘K’ mean that the station with that call-sign is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate in the USA.
Similarly, Mexico has ‘X’, Canada has ‘C’ and ‘V’, Spain has ‘E’, Germany has ‘D’, Russia has ‘U’, etc. etc