And WFAN started its format on 1050, killing the second incarnation of heritage call WHN in the process.
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Stations that give up "heritage" call letters
- Thread starter icybluelake
- Start date
And WFAN started its format on 1050, killing the second incarnation of heritage call WHN in the process.
Interesting thread, even though I don't put much "stake" (or whatever you call it) into heritage calls. 
I am reminded of a few things, personal opinions, etc. I've thought of recently, helped in part by the mention of 3-letter calls.
In my opinion, if the same facility, regardless of owner, wants to resurrect the same three-letter call it had had previously, it should be able to easily do so. (As in, easy as just notifying the FCC that they are reverting to that call. It would be available, seeing as no one else could use it in the meantime. I briefly thought about allowing the same *owner* to move the 3-letter call to another station, but I'm wondering if it's better for "heritage" purposes to tie it to the original or most known-associated facility.)
Same goes for resurrecting wrong-side-of-the-Mississippi calls.
Also, re: a station owner buying another station and downgrading or taking it dark to upgrade his own station... I think they should have to retain ownership of that license (I'm not sure how it'd work when taking the other one dark though). As soon as they sell it, the new owner would be able to revert to the previously-licensed pattern by just notifying the FCC.
In a case of a station losing its license for whatever reason (like 1660 KXOL), if the license is sold to an unaffiliated party, it would be reinstated.
In cases where stations are licensed to a small town in a large metro, but target the more lucrative metro city, I think they should be required to primarily serve their city of license, and not be allowed to have a decent signal in the large city. For example, the nearest large-city limits should be below 500 µV/m, the downtown or most lucrative area should be below 50 µV/m, and at least 10-15% of the city's land area or population, whichever is greater, should be outside the 5 µV/m contour. Exceptions to the first one would be made when the licensed city shares a border with the big city or similar cases, and to the 2nd when the downtown area is really close. Also it wouldn't apply to non-commercial operations, or non-directional stations.
Those are just personal opinions, though.
The mention of the KHJ story reminded me of something else. I guess we'll never see a Mexican station callsigned "XEKK"?
Also when Radio Disney was still into terrestrial radio, I thought it would be interesting for them to have a station somewhere west of the Mississippi on 1690 kHz. (I know of the one in Colorado.) They'd have a woman in like a seductive voice pronounce the frequency like "the number one. sixty-nine. OH!", then the callsign, ending with the same letters as rock or bunt. If they used the former, the antenna pattern would be like this - well I was gonna link a pic of the pattern drawn on an FCC pattern plot, but basically it looks almost like a hot dog pointed north, with the south end flanked with 2 mirror-imaged clams, and the transmitter site being slightly north of the center of the "clams". (I can link my mockup of the pattern if a mod wouldn't yell at me. It'd likely be considered NSFW though.) A companion idea had a separate callsign (the latter of the 2 mentioned earlier) and transmitter site (to the north) used for the IBOC sidebands. The shape of that pattern could probably be guessed by the context. I would guess something like that, even on a different station now that Disney is out of terrestrial radio except KDIS, likely would never happen though.
I am reminded of a few things, personal opinions, etc. I've thought of recently, helped in part by the mention of 3-letter calls.In my opinion, if the same facility, regardless of owner, wants to resurrect the same three-letter call it had had previously, it should be able to easily do so. (As in, easy as just notifying the FCC that they are reverting to that call. It would be available, seeing as no one else could use it in the meantime. I briefly thought about allowing the same *owner* to move the 3-letter call to another station, but I'm wondering if it's better for "heritage" purposes to tie it to the original or most known-associated facility.)
Same goes for resurrecting wrong-side-of-the-Mississippi calls.
Also, re: a station owner buying another station and downgrading or taking it dark to upgrade his own station... I think they should have to retain ownership of that license (I'm not sure how it'd work when taking the other one dark though). As soon as they sell it, the new owner would be able to revert to the previously-licensed pattern by just notifying the FCC.
In a case of a station losing its license for whatever reason (like 1660 KXOL), if the license is sold to an unaffiliated party, it would be reinstated.
In cases where stations are licensed to a small town in a large metro, but target the more lucrative metro city, I think they should be required to primarily serve their city of license, and not be allowed to have a decent signal in the large city. For example, the nearest large-city limits should be below 500 µV/m, the downtown or most lucrative area should be below 50 µV/m, and at least 10-15% of the city's land area or population, whichever is greater, should be outside the 5 µV/m contour. Exceptions to the first one would be made when the licensed city shares a border with the big city or similar cases, and to the 2nd when the downtown area is really close. Also it wouldn't apply to non-commercial operations, or non-directional stations.
Those are just personal opinions, though.
The mention of the KHJ story reminded me of something else. I guess we'll never see a Mexican station callsigned "XEKK"?
Also when Radio Disney was still into terrestrial radio, I thought it would be interesting for them to have a station somewhere west of the Mississippi on 1690 kHz. (I know of the one in Colorado.) They'd have a woman in like a seductive voice pronounce the frequency like "the number one. sixty-nine. OH!", then the callsign, ending with the same letters as rock or bunt. If they used the former, the antenna pattern would be like this - well I was gonna link a pic of the pattern drawn on an FCC pattern plot, but basically it looks almost like a hot dog pointed north, with the south end flanked with 2 mirror-imaged clams, and the transmitter site being slightly north of the center of the "clams". (I can link my mockup of the pattern if a mod wouldn't yell at me.
It'd likely be considered NSFW though.) A companion idea had a separate callsign (the latter of the 2 mentioned earlier) and transmitter site (to the north) used for the IBOC sidebands. The shape of that pattern could probably be guessed by the context. I would guess something like that, even on a different station now that Disney is out of terrestrial radio except KDIS, likely would never happen though. 
WNBC.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Pretty much every example of that which I can dredge out of my aging memory cells are cases where the license was surrendered on the silent (not dark; that would be television) station. That would mean starting from scratch if one wanted to revive the frequency, and that of course means the upgraded facility would have to be protected.
The two that come to mind were here in Calfiornia: 1150 in Santa Rosa (purchased by Clear Channel, then taken dark and the license surrendered to allow 1150 in Los Angeles to improve the northerly direction part of their pattern) and 850 Thousand Oaks (already silent and owned by CC, the license sold to Salem right before the one-year deadline to resume or be cancelled, who surrendered it concurrent with an application to broaden 870 Glendale's pattern).
Keep in mind that the FCC looks at the "community of license" which is not just the city but the area served by a signal and, to a certain extent, the general market area the station is in.
That is why in the past when we had 3-year station license renewals and a requirement for management to do extensive "community ascertainment" we had to speak with leaders in all the towns and cities within our primary coverage area, not just the city we were licensed to.
The FCC understands that people may live in one area but work in another and shop in yet another, and they understand that purely governmental city limits do not define a community.
The most distant I can think of is WINS in NYC buying 1010 in Little Rock to allow a relaxing of a null in the directional pattern at night.
The biggest consideration in this type of deal is whether it is economical for the "big station" to buy and shut off the little one. That means that the sacrificial station has to already be somewhat of a losing cause to start with.
In the cases of Santa Rosa and Thousand Oaks, neither station had been doing well. I believe Santa Rosa had its site in a flood plain and new environmental regulations were going to force a costly and probably prohibitive move. So in that case, near-dead stations were cashed in to make another station more viable.
I would not have cities of license at all, just media markets,
unless the station is very signal challenged.
There is no need to have stations that all serve the same areas with a dozen different COLs.
This is from an early twentieth century radio model.
Everyone in Miramar, FL should be excited because even though the broadcast towers are all around them, in fact the local CCC cluster is based in Miramar, they finally got a radio station to call their very own last year, and I am sure will concentrate on serving their very special community needs. See how WSFS's signal covers all of Miramar.
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Was AT&T a partner with RCA after the 1920s? I thought AT&T got out in 1928. 660 radio had been WEAF until 1946, when it changed to WNBC, then WRCA in '54, and back to WNBC in '60.
Yes, when the National Broadcasting Company was formed in 1926. RCA bought the station, and AT&T provided the interconnect for the NBC network.
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I
IndigoCoyote
Guest
In the Seattle area market, we have sort of a quirky deal where other operators have sort of reclaimed abandoned 3 letter calls by adding a K at the front. KKOL, KKXA and KKMO all have done this. With the first two, during the legal TOH they "bury" the first K quite a bit. KKMO is on the same frequency that KMO was - 1360 - but has gone through multiple calls and owners in the meantime; they are now Spanish "El Rey" so I doubt the calls mean anything to the current listeners, but it is still a cool gesture.
4th or possibly 5th: KSO 1460 Des Moines to KGGO, when 1460 began simulcasting KGGO 94.9 in the late 80s, when a cast-off cart deck could have been inserted at the 1460 transmitter to fire every hour with the KSO ID. Later, 1460 would receive the best homage to the original 3 letter call, KXNO. Not only does all the Xs and Os well describe the sports format, X+N/2 = S. It's as close as you can get with a four letter call to a three toe like KSO.
5th: without question, when Journal took over WOW 590 Omaha to change the calls to KOMJ.
As late as the 1970s, the Seattle area had KVI, KXA, KJR, KTW, KOL and KMO. In very short order, all but KVI and KJR were gone. KMO is gone for the dumbest reason I've ever heard of. They wanted to refer to the station as "AM Tacoma", so they changed call letters to "KAMT". In a short time, they changed again to KKMO. Why didn't they just leave the calls alone and still call it "AM Tacoma"? Actually, it seems to me that any station that now starts with "KK" that used to only have three letters, could probably get away with the same tactic as KHJ did.
That reminds me of another thing, I could actually agree to some extent with doing away with the "city of license" concept. I at least would prefer not having multiple COLs if they're targetting the same area. If they have different COLs, they should target different geographical areas, even if there's some overlap.
For example, I like the idea of low power AM to complement LPFM, to serve local areas, for example when you can't afford a big signal. I'd have to think more about it, but probably I'd allow commercials unlike LPFM but give special breaks for non-comms, have two service levels, high and low, with a possible third event (limited time like 1-2 weeks, negotiable/renewable but not super-extended like some STAs in practice are) category, etc.
High would be likely under 50 watts, low maybe around 1 or 5 watts for power. High level antenna would be below the FAA threshold, low would basically be something you could set up without needing a crane or things like that. Either a license for "low" would be super easy to get, costing at most about 1 day's worth of your electric bill for the application/filing fee), or would not require a license.
There wouldn't be 2nd-adjacent protections, and for low, possibly only very basic 1st-adjacent protections. Also protections would be approximated based on distance, average power of the protected station and regional average ground conductivity, and by distance for class A skywave only, if that's still retained. And for class C channels, if you have a jumbled mess at night at the proposed transmitter site, you can put it there, even if another station is easy armchair copy in the daytime & tripping scan on a portable, maybe. Just so long as the 10 mV/m signal (or, DavidEduardo, is it the 15 mV/m below which there usually isn't diary/ppm listening/ratings in major markets?) of any station isn't jeopardized, so the local-grade quality remains the same.
Under my concept of low-power AMs, it would be possible to have multiple stations on the same frequency in a large market (even without accounting for my idea of crowded class C situations).
I once read that the FCC refused to issue three letter calls to broadcast stations because three letter calls were originally intended for ship-to-shore maritime stations only.
I'm guessing that rule has changed being that the number of shore stations using CW and RTTY (and its variants) and three letter calls that are still active could be counted on both hands? KPH, WLO, KFS, KLB, etc. I have no idea how many are still operating, but not many.
One thing I forgot to mention, and was reminded of this while watching a somewhat unrelated video (Analog vs Digital on the techquickie youtube channel) in which AM radio was mentioned in passing.
My reason for choosing AM, as opposed to FM, primarily has to do with simplicity of the technology.
Also I've had another idea too, which is a bit more involved, involving reshuffling the band.
Expand the FM band to 76 MHz (like I've heard proposals to do.) Move as many AMs to FM as possible, with a transition period just long enough to make sure the equipment works. Coverage of the FM should be preferably greater than the former AM, not including skywave or low-frequency high-conductivity high-AM-power groundwave, primarily emphasizing the good-signal zone, not including DX.
Restructure AM so that the lower frequencies are used for wide-area coverage, the middle frequencies are for regional stations, and the highs are for local stations. Also, digital would get its own set of frequencies - you wouldn't, for example, have 1280 kHz in digital in Long Beach, CA, and in analog in New York, NY.
On the low frequencies, each network (be it ESPN, Premiere, Westwood One, whoever syndicates Rush & Hannity, Salem, Family Radio, Air 1, K-Love, Radio Disney, etc.) would get their own dedicated frequency, and build their own networks of high-power high-efficiency transmitters to blanket the 48 states. (High power meaning 1 megawatt or more, high efficiency meaning 510 mV/m/km/kW or more.) Channel spacing would be wider, like 30 kHz, with audio out to 15 kHz, to eliminate first-adjacent overlaps. (You could stand next to a 570 transmitter site and hear 600 without any interference or desense in full quality.) These transmitters would be synchronized, and the only deviation from simulcasting would be the TOH callsign ID. All ads would be of a national nature. (Of course going locally-oriented would be okay for emergencies.) However, if we could get wireless data service on smartphones, laptops, etc. to where you can get it anywhere in the country that it'd be possible to detect an AM signal, including remote wilderness areas, and also inside buildings that AM doesn't penetrate due to structure or RFI, without the customer having to pay a monthly service fee, just buy the radio, or have already bought the wifi-capable phone or laptop ... then my high-power AM nationwide network coverage idea wouldn't be necessary. But, the wireless service would need to cover every square inch of the 48 states with a solid signal, and cannot have recurring costs to the consumer, other than repairing failing or replacing aging equipment.
For the medium frequencies, they'd all be independently owned and operated, serving various regional areas, from as small as a single medium-large metro area like Washington, DC, to as large as a few states like the four corners states.
Last, but not least, and this was the category I was thinking about with LPAM & similar ... the high frequencies would be for the low power stations, like LPAMs and possibly the graveyards. (Although I'd expect all of those would get moved to FM.) Using high frequencies, I think, would be because you don't need as tall of an antenna to be efficient, and the signals die off faster over distance. Once you got outside the local coverage area, it wouldn't be as far to go before your signal dies out. Also, being AM (and no HD/IBOC to be used), it would be simple technology, and in many cases especially LPAM, station owners could all but build their own transmitter & antenna just by scrapping electronics from no-longer-needed appliances or gadgets, or even make their own capacitors, resistors, diodes, etc, where necessary, if they're skilled enough. Also receivers would be simple to make, just like normal AM radios.
(Of course DSP can offer better performance, but at least a simple diode, coil, variable capacitor, amplifier, earphone, etc. would work. (Even a typical 1st grader would be able to get a low powered station on to cover the geographical area in which his or her classmates live.) Also, the low-power stations, as much as possible, would not need to have their antennas fenced.
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Read these:
http://earlyradiohistory.us/recap.htm -- US callsign policies and the original 1913 international prefix assignments
http://earlyradiohistory.us/3myst.htm -- Mystique of 3-letter calls
In a perfect world, iHeart wouldn't be struggling with billions of dollars of debt. But since they are, this little fantasy scenario of mine would seem like so much of Nero's fiddling while Rome burns: 1. iHeart parks KXNO calls onto one of their many FMs. 2. KXNO 1460 Des Moines applies to retrieve heritage KSO calls. 3. KKDM 107.5 Des Moines, "KISS 107.5" applies for KSO-FM. 4. KXNO calls are moved back to 1460.
Apologies if I've posted this scenario before (I'm pretty sure I have) but since we're on the topic....
BTW, all of the Seattle stations that are using K+the heritage three-toe on the facilities that originally sported the three-toe would likely be able to get the three-toe back if they were to ask. Again, most managements likely have bigger fish to fry, or keep from burning, as in the analogy above.
Apologies if I've posted this scenario before (I'm pretty sure I have) but since we're on the topic....
BTW, all of the Seattle stations that are using K+the heritage three-toe on the facilities that originally sported the three-toe would likely be able to get the three-toe back if they were to ask. Again, most managements likely have bigger fish to fry, or keep from burning, as in the analogy above.
Interesting. One of the first rules of assigning an ID to an entity is to NOT embed intelligence in it because doing so will: (1) cause almost immediate problems with the "rules" of assignment and (2) the ID will quickly become misleading due to changes in the intelligence meaning. I saw this over and over again during my career in IT but it also applies to the assignment of calls.
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