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STATION CALL LETTERS

B

BIG APE

;D HOW ABOUT A JUST FOR OLD TIME MEMORIES TOPIC FOR A CHANGE!!!

When all us "Old-Timers" started in this biz years ago, most call letters stood for something..Let's see how far we can go with this!

My first station in Cocoa Beach Florida was WRKT for Rocket Radio for Cape Canaveral
WKKO was Cocoa, Fla..WMEL- Melbourne- Back in NC WTOB- World Tobacco for Reynolds, WPTF..We Protect the Family, Durham Life Insurance

How about the rest of you guys? BIG APE
 
growler33 said:
WBT Charlotte...Watch Buicks Travel
Growler33
Click to expand...
Ha Ha.. That is correct on BT... BT B^T BTBTWBT!!!
 
You mean call letter's don't stand for anything these days anymore?

Most mean something still around here: in radioland, let's start local and at bottom of the FM dial:

88.5 - WFDD - Wake Forest Demon Deacons
89.3 - WBFJ - Broadcasting For Jesus
89.3 - WSOE - Sound of Elon
91.5 - WUNC - University of North Carolina
95.5 - WHPE - High Point Enterprise (now Bible Broadcasting Network)
97.1 - WQMG - Quality Music for Greensboro
99.1 - WSLQ - was originally WSLS - Shenandoah Life Stations
99.5 - WMAG - MAGic!
103.1 - WUAG - University At Greensboro.
104.1 - WTQR - Top Quality Radio

to AM:

600 - WSJS - Winston-Salem Journal-Sentinel.
740 - WPAQ - doesn't stand for anything but Wikipedia says that one person though it should stand for "We Piddle Around Quietly"
830 - WTRU - TRUth!
920 - WPCM - We Play Carolinas' Music
950 - WPET - (Unsure if this is real) - We Preach Everlasting Truth ?? (I think it has a meaning but i don't remember it)
1320 - WCOG - City of Greensboro
1440 - WLXN - LeXingtonN

to TV

WFMY - FaMilY
WUNC - University of North Carolina
WGHP - Greensboro, High Point, Piedmont Triad.
WXII - 12 in Roman numerals.
WCWG - CW Network Greensboro.
WXLV - 45 in Roman numerals.
WXLI - 61 in Roman numerals.

WGPX doesn't stand for anything but I'd guess it'd denote "Greensboro's PAX network". WMYV fits in with MY network tV. WMYV got lucky with its call sign appropriation: it got WUPN in the days of the UPN TV network.

Mark.
 
I thought WGHP meant Winston-salem Greensboro High Point? I don't think there was a Piedmont Triad when they came on the air back in the 60's.
 
WTOB - just meant tobacco (there was no Reynolds connection according to the original owner)

WABZ - Albemarle * Watch Albemarle's business zoom.

WSPC - We serve Pfeiffer College. (some said we s_____ Pfeiffer coeds)

Here's a good one for you.....back from the 60s days of a big rivalry between WTOB and WAIR in Winston-Salem. One of my friends at WTOB said WAIR stood for "We're all idiots in Radio."

WTGR - Myrtle Beach - Tiger Radio.

WYDK - Yadkinville - Yadkin County.

WNMB- North Myrtle Beach.

WLEE - Richmond - in honor of Robert E. Lee

WZKY - Albemarle (was an original daytime only station; when it signed off in the evening you could pick up WCKY from Cincinnati on the same frequency at that time; the original owner thought perhaps listeners wouldn't know the difference.)
 
I remeber, I use to make fun of the old channle 40 WKFT call letters now (WUVC) I use to call it, Kentucky Fried TV. ;D
 
Some I know about:

WTOE Spruce Pine, TOE River
WKYK Burnsville, We Keep Yancey (county) Kicking (thought it seems all the Childress stations were WK - something - K)
WWNC Asheville, Wonderful Western North Carolina
WMSJ Sylva, Mickey, Sylvia, Jimmy (Childress, Jimmy's wife, daughter and himself)
WRGC Sylva, Ronnie G. Childress WMSJ after Ronnie was killed while working on the transmitter
WJTP Newland, James T. Parker (original owner)
WSVM Valdese, We Serve Valdese (&) Morganton
WBRM Marion, Wonderful Blue Ridge Mountains (though some always said We Broadcast Rotten Music)
WLOS Asheville, Land Of (the) Sky
WYFF Greenville We're Your Friend Four
WCOK Sparta Wonderful Carolina OK(Country)

That's all off the top of my head now, but I will post more when I come up with them.
 
WBAG-Burlington And Graham

What did WKEW stand for? Anybody know?
 
WRAE American Family translator in RAEford, NC
WYNC 1540 in Yanceyville, NC
WKBC WilKes BroadCasting
WGQR Great Quality Radio
WBLA BLAden County's station
WFVL FayetteViLle
WCLN Christian Listening Network or CLiNton
WFMO FairMOnt
WPJL We Proclaiim Jesus Lord
WZFX FoXy 99

Dang we could do a separate thread about call letters that used to mean something, but nowadays don't mean the same thing....
WBBB We're Building a Better Burlington [now WPCM 920, calls don't fit so well on 96Rock]
WKFT channel 40 We Know Fayetteville, Totally now it's We Know Foreign Tongue ;)
WERO 93.3 ERO sounded like "The Arrow" that shortlived format they tried in the early 90s was it?
WFLB Fayetteville Life [Insurance Co.] Broadcasting [they fit better on 1490 than they do on 96.5]
WDCG
WMXF used for MiX 96 when it was in Laurinburg now I think it's in the mountains
 
WMFR - We Make Furniture Right, OR We Make Frank Rich (owner was Frank Lambeth)
 
I'd heard - WTOB - We Trade Or Barter

Ch 20 has several calls:
WEJC - We Exclaim Jesus Christ
WBFX - WB + Fox - (They carried FOX Kids since WGHP didn't want cartoon after the Affiliation Switch.
WTWB - We're the Triad's WB

Ch 45 has several calls as well - WNRW was in honor the the SM that was shot at the station.
 
While we're in the Bull City, let's not forget

WTIK Where Tobacco Is King
WDBS the Duke Broadcasting System
WAFR AFRica

An old, deceased friend, George Grills, once jokingly told me that when Channel 28 had the calls WRDU-TV, it stood for "Weirdo-TV".

In my old stomping ground of Kannapolis, the stations there were referred to as . . .

WGTL World's Greatest Textile Land
or...
Whitley's Gets Them Last
Members of the Whitley family owned both the radio station and a funeral home

WRKB We Rob Kannapolis Blind

Later . . .
 
In Wilson...

WGTM - World's Greatest Tobacco Market
WLLY - We Love Loving You (it's a gospel station... stop snickering)
WVOT - Wilson's Voice Of Tobacco, now Wilson's Voice Of Truth
WUBN - "U B N the Spirit" (of course, with only 40 watts, you probably not B N the signal)
 
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