List of three-letter broadcast call signs in the United States
In the United States, all radio and television broadcasting stations that are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are assigned official, and unique, call signs. Organized broadcasting began in the U.S. in the early 1920s on the AM band — FM and television did not exist yet. Initially most broadcasting stations were assigned three-letter calls; however, a switch was made to primarily four-letter calls when the number of stations increased into the hundreds. The last new three-letter call was assigned to station WIS (now WVOC) in Columbia, South Carolina on January 23, 1930. Since then, three-letter calls have only been assigned to stations which are historically related to an AM station that was originally issued that call sign.
This list includes only FCC licensed stations. Not included are unlicensed operations, such as carrier current, cable TV, and Internet stations — for example, San Diego State University's "KCR" — which have adopted call-letter-like identifiers that are not officially issued by the FCC. Also not included are stations which use three-letter truncations of their official four-letter call signs, for example, the full call sign for radio station "KOH" in Reno, Nevada is actually KKOH. In addition, stations which formerly had three letters but have since changed (such as Albuquerque, New Mexico's KKOB, formerly KOB) are not listed.
The following lists are complete as of January 31, 2016.[1]
AM radio stations (54)
FM radio stations (29)
In cases where an AM station exists with the same "base" call letters as an FM station, the FM station is required to include an "-FM" suffix as part of its call sign. If no AM station is currently using the same base call sign, then the "-FM" suffix is optional.
Television stations (21)
As with FM stations, if an AM station currently exists with the same "base" call, a TV station must include a suffix to differentiate itself, but this suffix is optional if no AM station currently exists. TV stations may select either "-TV" or "-DT" as their suffix.
Other stations of note
- WWV - Fort Collins, Colorado — shortwave time signal data radio clock service operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
- KPH - Bolinas, California — shortwave morse code data service operated by the National Park Service
References
External links
- FCC Media Bureau Call Sign Desk - Call Sign Query
- Monthly reports of the FCC Media Bureau Call Sign Actions (2016)