what does the "K" or "w" stand for at the start of so many american radio stations?

Answer 1

the FCC uses K and W to seperate the east from the west by way of the Mississippi River. All radio stations east of the river begin with a W and all of them west of othe river start with K. There are a few exceptions however for heritage stations that were allowed to be grandfathered in. I live in Kansas and there are 2 radio stations and a TV station here that begin with W but they are the only ones I know of in the state that are W, everything else is K.

Answer 2

In radio (including television), a callsign or call sign (also call letters) is a unique designation for amateur, broadcast, and sometimes military radio use, as well as for broadcast television. Such callsigns are formal, semi-permanent, and issued by a nation's telecommunications agency.

Each country has a set of alphabetic or numeric International Telecommunication Union-designated prefixes with which their callsigns must begin. For example:

The U.S.A. uses the prefixes: W, K, N, and AAA to ALZ (only W and K are used for broadcast stations).
Canada uses the prefixes: CF-CK, CY-CZ, VA-VG, VO, VX-VY, XJ-XO
Mexico uses X
The United Kingdom uses the prefixes: G, M, and 2
France uses the prefixes: F, TM
Germany uses the prefixes: DA-DR
Chad uses the prefix: TT
Italy uses the prefix: I

Answer 3

the great white father in Washington (i.e., the FCC) prepared the letters around 1912. The link under provides you with some extremely sturdy perception into the plan, yet from all i could learn, the easily "ok" and "W" meaning seems to be lost in time. i will declare this, in accordance with my 1970's journalism classes, that i replace into instructed the "ok" stood for "kilowatts" and "W" for "prompt".

Answer 4

every thing Amalia said plus the "K" designations are given to stations east if the Mississippi River, "W" to those that are west. Trivia: You can guess how old a station is by it's call sign, older stations will have three letters IE: WLS KGO, etc.
newer stations have four letters IE: KDKA, WIIC

Answer 5

try this site:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010504.html