Why do radio stations have call letters?

Question

The four letter call words.. WJGM etc.

Answer 1

They have call letters because call letters are assigned station identification, W goes for the east of the Mississippi and K goes for the West.

Answer 2

International law requires that (most) all radio services have a unique identifier (a call sign). These call signs are issued by the communications regulatory bureau in each country. In the US, that is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Call  main use is to identify a station when that certain radio station is causing interference to another station.

The first letter of the call sigh denotes the country that the station is located in.  A,K, N, W for the USA. C and V for Canada. G for the UK.  X for Mexico etc.

Answer 3

As a way to ID the radio broadcast in case there is a problem with the signal, the Federal government knows who to come after. Basically all radio communications with the exception of the CB bands and some other unlicensed broadcasters don't have to ID.. however once you go over a certain power level, you are required to ID pretty much... the police,Fire, radio,TV, even the cell phone companies ID so the FCC knows who is broadcasting the signals.

And it's set up that radio and TV stations are given call letters to make it easier to ID and easier for people to recognize who they are than say police IDs  for instance.

So you will be stuck with say WKRP for a long more times (unlike in Latin America where stations don't give their ids out)

Answer 4

For station identification.