Why do MOST radio stations west of the Miss. river start with a K and east of that start with a W.?

Question

Why do MOST radio stations west of the Miss. river start with a K and east of that start with a W.?

Answer 1

thats the dividing line the FCC used so that the call leters wouldnt all be the same across the country.

Answer 2

FRC (former government entity to the FCC) decided it wanted a easier way to Id where a station was coming from in the nation at night and decided on the pattern you see there

Answer 3

The United States federal government began licencing radio stations in late 1912, and from the beginning it has assigned call letters starting with K and W to commercial and broadcasting stations. Moreover, from the start the policy has been that stations in the west normally got K-- calls, while W-- calls were issued to stations in the east. (Initially ship stations were the reverse, with W assignments in the west, and K in the east).

The original K/W boundary ran north from the Texas-New Mexico border, so at first stations along the Gulf of Mexico and northward were assigned W calls. It was only in late January, 1923 that the K/W boundary was shifted east to the current boundary of the Mississippi River. With this change, K's were assigned to most new stations west of the Mississippi, however, existing W stations located west of the Mississippi were allowed to keep their now non-standard calls.

There's also some interesting trivia on non-standards: K's east of the Miss and W's West at:

http://earlyradiohistory.us/kwtrivia.htm...

-a guy named duh