Why does all radio & TV stations start with "W"?!
Question: Its there call letters.
Answers: Its there call letters.
Perhaps it has something to do with the word "wireless"...?
East of the Mississippi, they start with W. And west of the river, they start with K. I don't know why that was done though. It was a government regulation that was initiated when radio first became popular.
there are exception, kyw in philly and kdka in pittsburgh
Generall speaking and those that weren't grandfathered in are:
Every TV and radio station west of the Mississippi starts "K"
Every TV and radio station east of the Mississippi starts "W"
not all of them dont, think of kerrang and radio 1
In the US not all stations start with W.
To figure out where stations were broadcasting from years ago, The FRC in 1928 (Actually It was the predecessor of the FCC) who decided that stations east of the Mississippi would start with a W and stations west would start with a K
However some stations have kept their calls from before the switch, hince we have KDKA in Pa and WFAA and WOAI in Texas.
In Canada, All radio stations start with CF-CK or CY-CZ except 4 stations in New Foundland which were broadcasting before New Foundland joined the Canadian confederation in 1949 (those 4 are allowed to use VO calls)
The letter designations (either K or W) were used because wireless telegraphy (what we now call radio) was originally used only by the military for ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore communications. The ships were given letter designations to identify them. Thus when the first radio station, KDKA Pittsburgh, went on the air in 1920, it was given the next available sequence of letters, as if it were a ship. Stations today are given call letters via a different system, but the basic format remains the same.
our radio stations start with K. i'm not sure why. and why do all radio stations have 4 letters? like KFMH or KSSK?
I live in Minneapolis where the Mississippi cuts right through. There are some stations that begin with a K and some that begin with a W. Some stations own multiple transmitters making it very weird sometimes.
The reasons for the difference are arbitrary. It didn't matter in the early days of radio where you were. In 1923, that changed. The existing ones were left as they were. W is thought to mean wireless. Interestingly, C is the prefix for Canadian stations and X is the prefix in Mexico.