Radio Call Sign Origins...

[The Great Escape]

WBT Charlotte, NC- Watch Buicks Travel
WLAC Nashville, TN- Life And Casualty
WLW Cincinnati OH- World's Lowest Wages (don't think this is really the origin but this is the one I have always heard)


anyone have others, past or present. TV stations as well.

[LosinIt]

1. Years ago WCNY channel 7 was for Watertown Carthage New York

but it changed sometime along the way to WWNY and WCNY is now a station out of Syracuse, I imagine standing for Central New York.

[Wapsie B]

2. More

WMT Cedar Rapids, Iowa - Waterloo Morning Tribune
WHO Des Moines, Iowa - With Hands On (Chiropractic)

edit: KOEL Oelwein, Iowa - Oelwein

[The Great Escape]

6. Good One For WHO....

I always wondered if there was a meaning to those call letters. Do they still do replays of Hawkeye football games early on Sunday mornings on that radio station?

[Wapsie B]

8. Yes they do.

Around 11 or 12 midnight Iowa time.

WHO was owned by the Palmer Chiropractic family as well as WOC.

[SmileyBoy]

3. WKLK Cloquet, MN - "We Kill Little Kids"

WDAY Fargo, ND - "Dregs And Yokels"

:D:D:D

But in all seriousness, did you know that WCCO in Minneapolis is a variation of WBBM in Chicago???

And let's see... KCNN in Grand Forks is the only radio station that has a contract with CNN to simulcast its broadcasts 24/7. The call letters KCNN have been around long before CNN came online. The CNN broadcasting has been around for at least several years.

[The Great Escape]

7. I Had Always Heard That WBBM Stood For "Worlds Best Battery Maker"*

[SmileyBoy]

10. I gotta tell you a funny story:

A few years ago, my family and I were at the end of a long trip from Minneapolis to the Colorado Rockies. We were in southern Minnesota, making our way up I-35 when we were able to get WCCO on our radio.

Anyways, my brother (who was 12 at the time) was already hyper and giddy as all-get-out from the long vacation we had just completed, and he said to me "What does WCCO stand for???... World Crappy Corn O-ssociation???"

Everyone in my family laughed all the way home.

[Waistdeep]

4. WOC - Davenport, Iowa

World of Chiropractic (it was started by the Palmer family of the Chiropractic School).

WOC was also where Ronald Reagan used to do his fake "broadcasts" of baseball and football games using just wire reports.

[ChoralScholar]

5. well...

WGN (Chicago) was originally owned by the Chicago Tribune (or was it the Sun Times?) Anyway, it stood for World's Greatest Newspaper.

KTHV (CBS-Little Rock) was originally KTHS, when it was in Hot Springs - it stood for Kome to Hot Springs.

KARV 610-AM - ARV is the Arkansas River Valley.

Thats all I remember for now.

[VHamrick]

9. WLW

"Whatta-lotta-watts"

[The Great Escape]

11. That Makes Sense...

I think WLW broadcast at 500, 000 watts at one point in time.

[TahitiNut]

12. WXYZ, an ABC affiliate. (Just took the other end of the alphabet.)

[no_hypocrisy]

13. WEVD (NY) - radio station created in the memory of Eugene V. Debbs.

1927-2001 R.I.P.

[Beware the Beast Man]

14. KDKA Pittsburgh, PA- "Ka-Dikka!!!!"

I'm sorry, it's still early :hangover:

[terrya]

15. WLS - World's Largest Store.

Reference to Sears Roebuck.

[baldguy]

16. WKBW in Buffalo

Well Known Bible Witness

[trof]

17. WAPI (B'ham) Auburn Polytechnic Institute

WBRC-World's Best Radio Corp. Possibly Birmingham Radio Corp.
WEZB was a "Negro" station when I was a kid. The way the DJ said it, it came out "de bizzy bee".

[arwalden]

18. WTAR (Tidewater and Richmond) WGH (World's Greatest Harbor)

[Dan-W]

19. Manchester, NH

WMUR (ABC-TV) MURphy (original owner)
WGIR (610 AM) GIRouix ( " " )