Sadly, no. As noted earlier in the thread, the portion of the X block that contains XL is allocated to Canada, not Mexico. XELAX would be possible in Mexico, though, as Mexico assigns both four- and five-letter calls.
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Do call letters still have meaning?
- Thread starter Don CT
- Start date
As much as NDXE seemed to be a ruse to sell T-shirts and coffee mugs to DXers, though they could call themselves anything, my understanding was that had it took to the air, the FCC would not have assigned an "N" call to a broadcast station.
That's too bad. I was thinking the Mexico branding could have been "Montezuma's Revenge".
So they never even got an official call? Interesting. Also I just saw a typo in my previous post. The publication was, of course, Passport to World Band Radio, not Passband.
And six-letter and even 7-letter ones.
Although, outside of the mandated legal ID, a station can give itself any call letters it wants. Clear Channel used "WFLA" on several AMs in Florida, at least for a while. There was nothing that prevented that.
Mr. Google found me a Radio Netherlands Media Network show from 1986 (audio about 2:30 in).
They apparently filed a CP in 1984 which expired a year later.
This seems to have been a prank at best and a scam at best,
The audio is fascinating.
The Media Network Vintage Vault 2026-2027: MN.27.06.1986.NDXE
There have been plenty of fantasy stations on short and mediumwave. Today we'd call them hype or vapourware. Back in the 80's, if someone started advertising the existance of a station in the World Radio TV Handbook (page 45, 1986 edition), then you tended to assume that it looked serious. In...
jonathanmarks.libsyn.com
True....I remember KYST outside of Houston going all-Beatles and being KBTL except for the legal ID.
That was common in the early days (1920-23), before stations could select their own call letters. Calls like WBBM (We Broadcast Better Music), WMAQ (We Must Ask Questions), and KFCB (Kind Friends Come Back) were sequentially assigned, and the slogans came later (if they really did; some of those are a bit of a stretch).
The original WGAY in Washington D.C. was named after its owner, Connie B. Gay, founder of the Country Music Association. Now, appropriately enough, those call letters are used by a dance music station in Key West.
KSFO-AM San Francisco is the Cumulus Owned talk station and SFO is the FAA calls for San Francisco International Airport.
There are quite a few sports stations with calls that suggest sports-related terms. The best known is WFAN (The Fan) in New York, but you also have WSCR (The Score) in Chicago, and several other Scores, WREF and KREF (The Ref) in Kentucky and Oklahoma, and WUMP (The Ump) near Huntsville, Ala., and many more. Those calls were all chosen to be part of the branding of the stations.
WSCR, incidentally, once belonged to an AM station here in Connecticut, and was chosen to fit the imaging of Suburban Country Radio.
WSCR, incidentally, once belonged to an AM station here in Connecticut, and was chosen to fit the imaging of Suburban Country Radio.
There is a difference between the FAA airport designation and the FCC locator call (also used as a primary weather station locator ID). FAA designation are 3 letters while the FCC's are 3 or 4 (or more in some cases).
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Add to the list KXNO Des Moines, KXNO-FM Ankeny IA..."all the X's and O's"
WSB - Welcome South, Brother!
Well ain't that fitting for the 500 kw superpower that peole used to hear near their fences!
They didn't use that on air, I just read it somewhere. Musicians complained about the wages though
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