WHERE WAS THIS PALACE THAT HOUSED NBC'S KPO AND KGO?
THREE LETTER CALLS
Radio and television station identification - expressed in a series of three or four letters of the alphabet - goes back to the days of the telegraphy when operators keyed a few characters to identify themselves when contacting or “calling” each other. When Congress enacted the Radio Act of 1912, all radio operators were required to become licensed by the Federal government and call signs were issued by the Department of Commerce Bureau of Navigation.
To make a long story short, international agreements determined that the United States would use call signs beginning with the letter K, the letter N and the letter W.* The government-issued call signs would consist of one of these prefixes followed by two or three additional letters unique to each license
The first license was issued by the Bureau on October 27, 1920. It assigned a four letter call sign to Westinghouse Electric for its KDKA/Pittsburgh. But three letter calls became the norm beginning with the second license, issued to another Westinghouse station, WJZ/Newark. A string of over a hundred three letter call signs followed, many still in use today - WBZ (License #3), WOR (#49), WLW (#62), KLZ (#67), WKY (#87), KOA (#95), KFI (#137) and WWL (#140), to name just a few.
Nevertheless, it became obvious that the inventory of three letter calls would eventually run out and the addition of a fourth letter would be required to expand the supply of possible call signs to meet the needs of the growing broadcast and maritime industries.
Three letters were routinely assigned until April 4, 1922, when License #144 was issued to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, for WABB. That was the beginning of the end for three letter calls. The last one in the 1922 flurry of licenses, #255, was issued to WHB/Kansas City on May 10, 1922. **
Listed below are 63 of the 190 stations that were granted three letter call signs in the two years when they were commonly issued. The stations in each set have two of their three call letters in common. Some of these stations still exist with their original calls, others have had their identities changed and a few no longer exist. Can you identify the cities associated with them? Be warned that this isn't as easy a test as it seems, unless you're familiar with Yakima and Omaha and...
KEX KFH KGO
KNX KFI KGU
KXL KFZ KGW
KHJ KID KLO
KMJ KIT KPO
KUJ KVI KXO
KMA KOB KSD
KOA KOH KSL
KYA KOY KSO
WBT WEW WGH
WBZ WLW WGL
WDZ WOW WGN
WGR WHA WHN
WGY WHB WHO
WKY WHK WHP
WIL WJR WJW
WIP WOR WWJ
WIS WRR WWL
WLS WMC WOI
WSB WOC WOL
WSM WRC WOV
The stations, in alphabetical order, are listed below the footnotes with their locations.
* As Thomas H. White explains in his excellent website, www.earlyradiohistory.us, not all of the possible 2,028 three letter combinations beginning with K, N and W were available to private radio operators. Seventy-eight, (KAA to KCZ), were allocated to Germany until 1929, all 676 combinations beginning with letter N were reserved for government use and 130, (WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ), were reserved for use by the U.S. Army. That left a total of 1,144 three letter combinations - and those had to be shared between land based and maritime operators.
** The spring of 1922 was a particularly busy season for the Department of Commerce granting radio licenses - 327 were issued from March 2nd to June 30th,
Three Letter Call Sign Stations & Locations
KEX Portland OR KFH Wichita KA KFI Los Angeles CA KFZ Spokane WA KGO San Francisco CA KGU Honolulu HI KGW Portland OR KHJ Los Angeles CA KID Idaho Falls ID KIT Yakima WA KLO Ogden UT KMA Shenandoah IA KMJ Fresno CA KNX Los Angeles CA KOA Denver CO KOB Albuquerque NM KOH Reno NV KOY Phoenix AZ KPO San Francisco CA KSD St. Louis MO KSL Salt Lake City UT KSO Des Moines IA KUJ Walla Walla WA KVI Seattle WA KXL Oakland CA KXO El Centro CA KYA San Francisco CA
WBT Charlotte NC WBZ Springfield/Boston MA WDZ Decatur IL WEW St. Louis MO WGH Newport News VA WGL Ft Wayne IN WGN Chicago IL WGR Buffalo NY WGY Schenectady NY WHA Madison WI WHB Kansas City MO WHK Cleveland OH WHN New York NY WHO Des Moines IA WHP Harrisburg PA WIL St. Louis MO WIP Philadelphia PA WIS Columbia SC WJR Detroit MI WJW Cleveland OH WKY Oklahoma City OK WLS Chicago IL WLW Cincinnati OH WMC Memphis TN WOC Davenport IA WOI Ames, IA WOL Washington DC WOR New York NY WOV New York NY WOW Omaha NE WRC Washington DC WRR Dallas TX WSB Atlanta GA WSM Nashville TN WWJ Detroit MI WWL New Orleans LA
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Radio and television station identification - expressed in a series of three or four letters of the alphabet - goes back to the days of the telegraphy when operators keyed a few characters to identify themselves when contacting or “calling” each other. When Congress enacted the Radio Act of 1912, all radio operators were required to become licensed by the Federal government and call signs were issued by the Department of Commerce Bureau of Navigation.
To make a long story short, international agreements determined that the United States would use call signs beginning with the letter K, the letter N and the letter W.* The government-issued call signs would consist of one of these prefixes followed by two or three additional letters unique to each license
The first license was issued by the Bureau on October 27, 1920. It assigned a four letter call sign to Westinghouse Electric for its KDKA/Pittsburgh. But three letter calls became the norm beginning with the second license, issued to another Westinghouse station, WJZ/Newark. A string of over a hundred three letter call signs followed, many still in use today - WBZ (License #3), WOR (#49), WLW (#62), KLZ (#67), WKY (#87), KOA (#95), KFI (#137) and WWL (#140), to name just a few.
Nevertheless, it became obvious that the inventory of three letter calls would eventually run out and the addition of a fourth letter would be required to expand the supply of possible call signs to meet the needs of the growing broadcast and maritime industries.
Three letters were routinely assigned until April 4, 1922, when License #144 was issued to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, for WABB. That was the beginning of the end for three letter calls. The last one in the 1922 flurry of licenses, #255, was issued to WHB/Kansas City on May 10, 1922. **
Listed below are 63 of the 190 stations that were granted three letter call signs in the two years when they were commonly issued. The stations in each set have two of their three call letters in common. Some of these stations still exist with their original calls, others have had their identities changed and a few no longer exist. Can you identify the cities associated with them? Be warned that this isn't as easy a test as it seems, unless you're familiar with Yakima and Omaha and...
KEX KFH KGO
KNX KFI KGU
KXL KFZ KGW
KHJ KID KLO
KMJ KIT KPO
KUJ KVI KXO
KMA KOB KSD
KOA KOH KSL
KYA KOY KSO
WBT WEW WGH
WBZ WLW WGL
WDZ WOW WGN
WGR WHA WHN
WGY WHB WHO
WKY WHK WHP
WIL WJR WJW
WIP WOR WWJ
WIS WRR WWL
WLS WMC WOI
WSB WOC WOL
WSM WRC WOV
The stations, in alphabetical order, are listed below the footnotes with their locations.
* As Thomas H. White explains in his excellent website, www.earlyradiohistory.us, not all of the possible 2,028 three letter combinations beginning with K, N and W were available to private radio operators. Seventy-eight, (KAA to KCZ), were allocated to Germany until 1929, all 676 combinations beginning with letter N were reserved for government use and 130, (WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ), were reserved for use by the U.S. Army. That left a total of 1,144 three letter combinations - and those had to be shared between land based and maritime operators.
** The spring of 1922 was a particularly busy season for the Department of Commerce granting radio licenses - 327 were issued from March 2nd to June 30th,
Three Letter Call Sign Stations & Locations
KEX Portland OR KFH Wichita KA KFI Los Angeles CA KFZ Spokane WA KGO San Francisco CA KGU Honolulu HI KGW Portland OR KHJ Los Angeles CA KID Idaho Falls ID KIT Yakima WA KLO Ogden UT KMA Shenandoah IA KMJ Fresno CA KNX Los Angeles CA KOA Denver CO KOB Albuquerque NM KOH Reno NV KOY Phoenix AZ KPO San Francisco CA KSD St. Louis MO KSL Salt Lake City UT KSO Des Moines IA KUJ Walla Walla WA KVI Seattle WA KXL Oakland CA KXO El Centro CA KYA San Francisco CA
WBT Charlotte NC WBZ Springfield/Boston MA WDZ Decatur IL WEW St. Louis MO WGH Newport News VA WGL Ft Wayne IN WGN Chicago IL WGR Buffalo NY WGY Schenectady NY WHA Madison WI WHB Kansas City MO WHK Cleveland OH WHN New York NY WHO Des Moines IA WHP Harrisburg PA WIL St. Louis MO WIP Philadelphia PA WIS Columbia SC WJR Detroit MI WJW Cleveland OH WKY Oklahoma City OK WLS Chicago IL WLW Cincinnati OH WMC Memphis TN WOC Davenport IA WOI Ames, IA WOL Washington DC WOR New York NY WOV New York NY WOW Omaha NE WRC Washington DC WRR Dallas TX WSB Atlanta GA WSM Nashville TN WWJ Detroit MI WWL New Orleans LA
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com