[Elecraft] OT: W vs K broadcast station callsigns

[Hostgate]

When my boss built his first radio station he told the FCC that the station was NORTH of the Mississippi. They let him pick W or K. 

-de John NI0K 

> On Oct 6, 2020, at 4:29 PM, Phil Kane <k2asp at kanafi.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 10/6/2020 1:04 PM, Mike Morrow wrote:
>> 
>> Another interesting fact about US broadcast station callsigns is that
>> back before U.S. maritime radioTELEGRAPHY ended (except for rare
>> historical exercises) in 1999, most US-flag merchant ships with
>> radiotelegraph stations were assigned four-letter callsigns beginning
>> with K or W.
> 
> As others have posted, the convention was that Broadcast stations east
> of the Mississippi were given W call letters and west of the Mississippi
> were given K call letters (with noted exceptions).  Ocean-going ships
> had the opposite according to their home port of registration.
> 
>> There are no longer many such calls that are still assigned to
>> merchant shipping.
> 
> When I started doing ship safety radio inspections in 1967 there were
> 600+ such vessels in the US registry, not counting the WW-II-era Victory
> ships that were owned by the U S Maritime Commission and were being
> pulled out of "Red Lead Row" (deep storage Reserve Fleets) and operated
> under contract to support the Vietnam War going on at that time.  New
> ship radiotelegraph stations will be licensed as part of the ship's
> radio station license under the now-standard XXXnnnn call letters.
> 
> 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
> Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402
> 
> From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
> Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
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