Talk:Call signs in North America: Difference between revisions
→US W and K call sign regions: Not so. |
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::I don't know that the K/W split has ever been relevant to the amateur service (or even to broadcast auxiliary services; one station near where I used to live had auxiliary licenses KEH93, KEH94, WHA855, and WHA856). Perhaps the article can more clearly express that all the rules described are for broadcast stations only. As for your local broadcast stations, in order for that to be the case, you must live in a market that straddles the Mississippi, as discussed in the article, or else in a very small community west of the Mississippi but in the central time zone (the western boundary of which roughly follows the old K/W line). Experimental broadcast callsigns, although allocated out of the amateur series, do follow the division. [[User:121a0012|121a0012]] 02:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC) |
::I don't know that the K/W split has ever been relevant to the amateur service (or even to broadcast auxiliary services; one station near where I used to live had auxiliary licenses KEH93, KEH94, WHA855, and WHA856). Perhaps the article can more clearly express that all the rules described are for broadcast stations only. As for your local broadcast stations, in order for that to be the case, you must live in a market that straddles the Mississippi, as discussed in the article, or else in a very small community west of the Mississippi but in the central time zone (the western boundary of which roughly follows the old K/W line). Experimental broadcast callsigns, although allocated out of the amateur series, do follow the division. [[User:121a0012|121a0012]] 02:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC) |
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:::I think the K/W split did apply to amateur many years ago. Clearly it no longer does. As to my local stations being K/W, I'm on the east coast, so I don't think the market straddles the Mississippi. I think the FCC uses a lot of these rules as guidelines, but in the last 5 years has been happy to ignore them when convenient. --[[User:Ssd|ssd]] 07:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC) |
:::I think the K/W split did apply to amateur many years ago. Clearly it no longer does. As to my local stations being K/W, I'm on the east coast, so I don't think the market straddles the Mississippi. I think the FCC uses a lot of these rules as guidelines, but in the last 5 years has been happy to ignore them when convenient. --[[User:Ssd|ssd]] 07:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC) |
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::::If you are on the east coast, then it is certainly not the case that "half [your] local commercial stations are K, half W". There are only seven "eastern K" stations anywhere in the country, and only two of them (KYW and KYW-TV) are on the east coast. (For the record, the other five are KDKA, KDKA-TV, KQV, KTGG, and KFIZ. The first three are in [[Pittsburgh]], KTGG is in Michigan, and KFIZ is in [[Fond du Lac, Wisconsin]].) Even the "Mississippi Valley" exception covers very few stations; outside of Louisiana and Minnesota, there are (according to the FCC's own database) only eleven such stations. [[User:121a0012|121a0012]] 02:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 02:48, 31 December 2005
Does this article serve any useful purpose that is not better set out in callsign? I just corrected two fundamental errors here that I had already fixed in callsign months ago. I think a merger is indicated. 18.26.0.18 04:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Callsign" versus "call sign"
A recent edit did a search-and-replace of "call sign" for "callsign" throughout the article. I do not think this is the Wikipedia way; either form is acceptable, so editors should not change an article from the form with which it was written. (For the same reason I'm not going to change it back.) The same edit also changed "initialism" into "initialization" so it may just be a bad spell-checker run amok. My personal preference is for one word, "callsign", but the FCC uses "call sign" and many others use "call letters" or just "calls". 18.26.0.18 03:54, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
RE: call sign vs callsign, may have done this while using a spell checking program. My main purpose was writing some articles in individual radios stations. Also, whenever I encounter an Americanism of the spelling of a word, I try to leave it alone. I have no problem with you changing it back if I inadvertently did that. If so, I apologize. I wish the ieSpell program was better able to adjust to this. Vaoverland 04:01, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
I deleted the Trivia section as per your request. Vaoverland 09:49, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
Call sign sharing
The article says: "The FCC allows FM and TV stations under common ownership with a three-letter AM or FM in the same market to use five-letter (three plus "-FM" or "-TV" suffix) callsigns" (emphasis added). I think that the "in the same market" limitation is either no longer applicable or there are exceptions, such as KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and KCBS (AM) and KCBS-FM in San Francisco.
--Hillrhpc 04:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
- KCBS is not a grandfathered three-letter call. There are no restrictions on the reuse of four-letter calls with service suffix other than consent of the longest incumbent owner. 121a0012 03:09, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Short Callsigns - Another Exception
I'm thinking a paragraph might be wrong.
The FCC allows FM and TV stations under common ownership with a three-letter AM or FM in the same market to use five-letter (three plus "-FM" or "-TV" suffix) callsigns...
KOB-TV (Albuquerque, New Mexico) still uses a three-letter callsign, although it hasn't had common ownership with KOB Radio (now KKOB) for at least 25 years. And, as I just pointed out, KOB Radio no longer uses the three-letter callsign; it's now four letters (KKOB), which happened in 1986, well after KOB-TV/Radio split up.
Are KOB-TV and WJZ-TV (mentioned in the article) just grandfathered in, then? -Oddtoddnm 05:36, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
- KOB-TV is grandfathered, yes, for the reasons you state. WJZ-TV is not grandfathered—the original grant of WJZ-TV was exceptional (and probably a mistake on the part of the FCC staff, although I have not researched the primary sources—if any are available—to see how it was treated administratively). Remember that this article is not intended to be a compendium of all stations which have grandfathered callsigns; the stations mentioned are only by way of example. 121a0012 21:12, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
Why???
This article doesn't answer the fundamental question. Why do these exist? We get on fine without them in the UK, and they are not exactly snappy marketing tools. What is the point of them? Who made the decision to use them and why? 82.35.34.11 22:46, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
- Whatever reasons governments may have had for introducing call signs in the 1920s are probably out-of-scope for this article. The short answer to your question is: there are more than 20,000 broadcast stations in North America. How else are you going to keep them all straight? (The UK gets on fine without a lot of things USians consider necessary, as one might well expect for a country the size of Minnesota!) 121a0012 02:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
US W and K call sign regions
I don't think that the W and K convention for east/west of the Mississippi has been followed for many years. There are too many (new, not grandfathered) exceptions to this for it to be true anymore. I think the FCC is allocating these either on demand (vanity), or sequentially for both prefixes, without respect to geographic location. --ssd 00:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- The FCC rules say otherwise, and your mention of new exceptions is news to me. Can you name some? 121a0012 02:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well, it is certainly not true in the way they do the amateur radio call sign allocations; the region is strictly on the digit in the middle, not the prefix, which seems to be allocated by class, not location. (Currently, tech gets KI, extra gets AI.) Half my local commercial stations are K, half are W. --ssd 14:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know that the K/W split has ever been relevant to the amateur service (or even to broadcast auxiliary services; one station near where I used to live had auxiliary licenses KEH93, KEH94, WHA855, and WHA856). Perhaps the article can more clearly express that all the rules described are for broadcast stations only. As for your local broadcast stations, in order for that to be the case, you must live in a market that straddles the Mississippi, as discussed in the article, or else in a very small community west of the Mississippi but in the central time zone (the western boundary of which roughly follows the old K/W line). Experimental broadcast callsigns, although allocated out of the amateur series, do follow the division. 121a0012 02:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- I think the K/W split did apply to amateur many years ago. Clearly it no longer does. As to my local stations being K/W, I'm on the east coast, so I don't think the market straddles the Mississippi. I think the FCC uses a lot of these rules as guidelines, but in the last 5 years has been happy to ignore them when convenient. --ssd 07:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know that the K/W split has ever been relevant to the amateur service (or even to broadcast auxiliary services; one station near where I used to live had auxiliary licenses KEH93, KEH94, WHA855, and WHA856). Perhaps the article can more clearly express that all the rules described are for broadcast stations only. As for your local broadcast stations, in order for that to be the case, you must live in a market that straddles the Mississippi, as discussed in the article, or else in a very small community west of the Mississippi but in the central time zone (the western boundary of which roughly follows the old K/W line). Experimental broadcast callsigns, although allocated out of the amateur series, do follow the division. 121a0012 02:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- If you are on the east coast, then it is certainly not the case that "half [your] local commercial stations are K, half W". There are only seven "eastern K" stations anywhere in the country, and only two of them (KYW and KYW-TV) are on the east coast. (For the record, the other five are KDKA, KDKA-TV, KQV, KTGG, and KFIZ. The first three are in Pittsburgh, KTGG is in Michigan, and KFIZ is in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.) Even the "Mississippi Valley" exception covers very few stations; outside of Louisiana and Minnesota, there are (according to the FCC's own database) only eleven such stations. 121a0012 02:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)