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Re:Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe by chrisseaton on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @12:37PM (#23479048)
Oh wow so they don't even stand for anything? Must be hard to brand an abbreviation you get handed!
Re:Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe by gbear605 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @12:44PM (#23479156)
The three latter letters are usually meaningful, but only barely. For example, there’s WGBH, a Boston public broadcasting station that stands for Great Blue Hills, which are the hills that the broadcasting antenna is located on.
Re:Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe by richardfontana on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @01:13PM (#23479541)
Also related to the etymology of Massachusetts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts#Etymology
Re:Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe by s1mon on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @12:55PM (#23479309)
You can request a call sign along with getting your license from the FCC. The process has changed over time, but many (most?) call signs have some sort of historical connection to something: e.g. KRON was broadcast from the SF Chronicle newspaper building, WRCT is Carnegie Mellon's University's station (originally Radio Carnegie Tech, from before it was CMU). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_signs_in_the_United_State...
Re:Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe by schoen on Thursday June 11, 2020 @01:42AM (#23485534)
It seems to go in both directions: you can ask for one that has some meaning to you (which you can then potentially get if no one is using it), or you can try to make up a backronym. I don't remember good backronym examples but I know they exist. The stations will also vary in whether they prefer for people to pronounce the whole callsign, or just part of it, or spell it out. (Technically I think the callsign is always spelled out when used as a callsign, but not necessarily when used as a brand.)