Radio: Four-Letter Words

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Chicago's Educational Television Association, scheduled to go on the air over Channel 11, appealed for a distinctive set of call letters. Some 200 enthusiasts last week responded with education-slanted suggestions ranging from WPHD and WIQ to WTET ("Welcome to Educational Television"). Columnist Larry Wolters, in the Chicago Tribune, regretfully noted that several likely candidates were already in use: KNOW, WHO, WHAT, and WABC. Wolters suggested WHY.

The call letters for Chicago's Channel 11 will have to start with W, since the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that, in general, all station call letters east of the Mississippi begin with that letter and all those west of the Mississippi begin with K. Originally, only three call letters were required, but the mushrooming growth of radio threatened to exhaust the possible combinations and made it necessary to add a fourth letter.

In choosing call letters, many stations have managed to latch on to complete words (e.g., WANT, KING, WREN, KID, KEEP). Others seek home-town identification with abbreviations or by using the first three letters of their respective cities, as WBAL in Baltimore and WNYC for New York's municipal station. None has surpassed the simplicity of station WACO in Waco, Texas.

Individuals are honored by KFDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt), WEVD (Socialist Eugene V. Debs), WABD (Inventor Alien B. Du Mont) and WRGB (Dr. W.R.G. Baker of General Electric). Some stations go in for slogans: the Chicago Tribune has long called itself the "World's Greatest Newspaper," and its radio station is consequently labeled WGN; station WIOD in Miami symbolizes "Wonderful Isle of Dreams," and Atlanta's WSB means "Welcome South, Brother." Other appropriate call letters: the coyote howl of KIYI for Shelby, Mont.; KENO for gambling-mad Las Vegas, and KAVE for New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns.

Moscow, Idaho, has the innocuous call letters of KRPL, but Glendale, Calif, strikes a Ukrainian note with station KIEV. Stations KORN and KOB are in South Dakota and New Mexico, but corn-fed Iowa gets into the act with Mason City's station KRIB, while Texas pays tribute to its cattle with station KINE.

Some call letters sound like static (KAGH, KARK, KWAK, WZIP, WROK, WOKY), others like Aztec gods (KIXL, KXJK, KXXX), and a few like New Year's Eve (WOOW, WEEI). For the commercially minded, there are KOIN, KASH and KALE. A rundown of Hawaiian stations has the roll of a Polynesian alphabet (KILA, KONA, KIPA, KULA, KANI), and the palm for redundancy goes to Puerto Rico's'monotonous station WWWW.