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98.7 WHFM?

DToTheJ

DToTheJ

Found a website for what appears to resemble a radio station (pirate) calling itself "98.7 WHFM". Lots of references to Houston, specifically KRBE, on the website, video clips and more...
http://whfm.cellit.us/hosted/

Technically, calls can't start with W in Texas (with WACO being the exception) and even if they wanted to use the WHFM calls, they're assigned to a station in Eastern Long Island, NY.
 
WACO in Waco, TX is not the only exception... there's WBAP in Fort Worth, WOAI in San Antonio, and WTAW in College Station. These stations had there calls already when the law from the 1930's went into effect where everything west of the Mississippi River had call beginning with K and everything East of the river started with W...
 
Bill Ingram is absolutely right, "K" west of the Mississippi, "W" east with some exceptions, KDKD Pittsburgh first on air, and then FM Wattage, years back every station on FM East of the Mississippi and north of the Mason/Dixon line licensed only up 50 KW, and every FM East of the Mississippi and South of the M/D line could be licensed up 100KW....
 
Bill Ingram said:
WACO in Waco, TX is not the only exception... there's WBAP in Fort Worth, WOAI in San Antonio, and WTAW in College Station. These stations had there calls already when the law from the 1930's went into effect where everything west of the Mississippi River had call beginning with K and everything East of the river started with W...
Click to expand...

WRR in Dallas.

Houston is the only major city in Texas without a W call. All of them, starting with WEV, perished.
 
Bill Ingram said:
WACO in Waco, TX is not the only exception... there's WBAP in Fort Worth, WOAI in San Antonio, and WTAW in College Station. These stations had there calls already when the law from the 1930's went into effect where everything west of the Mississippi River had call beginning with K and everything East of the river started with W...
Click to expand...

WRR in Dallas, which scores double points for also being a 3-letter call.

Houston is the only major city in Texas without a W call. All of them, starting with WEV, perished.
 
Okay, 2 points. Maybe 3.

1. WHFM sounds like a wonderfull call sign for a Houston radio station. But it's not a radio station, in the real sense. It's a web site. So they can use WHFM for that unless the WHFM station in New York has it copyrighted or registered or something. They probably don't. All they have is an FCC license to use that call sign where they are on the air and no one else can get a license to be "on the air" with that call sign.

2. The history of the K's and W's was good. (Of course, I'm old and already knew that but maybe some you young whipersnappers out there didn't. There will be a quiz tomorrow. If you pass, you'll get your 3rd-level FCC technical license. And a free AMPEX recording machine thrown in.)

3. I think that I read somewhere where the FCC has relaxed the W's and K's rule. It may be possible to get a new W call sign in Houston. But I only think I read that.

4. I'm probably wrong in this post here and there. Feel free to correct me.
 
If you look under the frequency/call letters in the upper left hand corner you will see the following:

"Demonstration site for CELLit media."


 
The Commerce Dept first issued calls with just 3 letters, not having any idea how popular broadcasting was to become. They ran out of 3 letter calls by March of '23; WEV was the only Houston station to ever have a 3 letter call (while licensed to Houston). The original dividing line between the Ws and the Ks was the Texas-New Mexico border. By January 23, they had figured out there were going to be a lot more requests for permits in the Eastern US than Western, due to population, and moved the line to the Mississippi. The first station issued a K-call that would previously have been issued a W-call was in Houston, KFCV, in January, 23. It was licensed to the Mahaffey Electric Company and lasted 3 years, at least on paper. It only broadcast to demonstrate radio to potential customers within the store.

There were no computer generated random lists so the government relied on serial lists. The pattern established for the first W-calls was W_A_, with the blanks filled in alphabetically. All the stations in Houston and Texas that got W-calls followed that pattern, WBAP, WFAA, WTAW, WOAI, and WJAD, Waco among them.

TJRG is correct that none of the stations licensed in Houston in 1922 survived; our oldest local station is now KHCB, League City, 1400, originally licensed as KFLX, Galveston, in November, 1923. It was later KLUF and KILE and is the oldest station anywhere on the Texas Gulf Coast.

WJAD is an interesting exception - it flipped to WACO in 1930, well after the move of the line to the Mississippi, after persuading a merchant ship to give up the calls and apparently persuading the FRC to allow a W-call west of the Mississippi. There are other notable examples of K-calls east of the Mississippi besides KDKA, which by the way, was not the first radio station; another one is KYW, Philadelphia, another Westinghouse station, that started out in Chicago and spent time in Cleveland before winding up in Philly, each time being allowed to keep it's original calls.

Besides WACO, the only W-calls issued in Texas that I know of after 1922 were those issued to FM or TV counterparts of AM stations with W-calls, again, allowed by FCC rules.
 
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