Radio call letters that have local significance

What radio call letters spell out words (and not just acronyms or abbreviations) that have a direct relationship to where the station is located?

For example, 96.5 KOIT makes sense in SF, which has Coit Tower. Similarly, 104.5 KFOG is a good way to allude to the fog that’s a pervasive part of life in the City here.

What other examples can you think of?

Would you want call letters that resemble the city name, like WKZO in Kalamazoo MI and WMAD in Madison WI?

Well, we have KPHX here in Phoenix…

Washington, DC’s WASH-FM

How about a TV station? Washington, DC’s WUSA, which is owned by Gannett, the publisher of USA Today. There’s also WDCA, which includes the FAA code for National Airport.

WFBR is an AM station in Baltimore, MD whose call letters stand for First Baltimore Radio, or so I was told years ago.

Another SF station, presumable an homage to the cable cars is KABL.

Chicago’s WLUP alludes to the Loop. WLS - the World’s Largest Store and WGN, the World’s Greatest Newspaper also have local significance there.

KORN in Mitchell, SD, home of the Corn Palace.

I’m a bit suprised that WARP is unassigned.

The OP says no acronyms or abbreviations.

WACO in Waco, TX.

WINE in Brookfield, CT, presumably in reference to the area’s wineries.

WHAT in Philadelphia, PA, perhaps referring to the John B. Stetson Company being founded there?

CHAM in Hamilton, Ontario. It used to be a great rock station on 1280 that fell on hard times in the late '70s, was sold, and moved in the early '80s to 820 AM, where it became a country station. It is now a mostly automated country oldies-but-goodies station.

There used to be a WYAT in New Orleans, referring to a popular local expression: “Where y’at?”

KING in Seattle, King County, Washington.

WFSU-FM in Tallahassee, FL. Owned and operated by Florida State University.

There are probably dozens of stations named after their university owners.

Chicago’s Fox syndicate is WFLD. The ‘F’ has nothing to do with Fox, though … it was an abbreviation of Field, after founding owner Field Enterprises … a company formed by heirs of Marshall Field, the man responsible for Chicago’s signature department store. The station has changed hands a number of times since its establishment in 1966 and is quite removed from the Field family today though (not unlike the Marshall Fields stores themselves as of late).

I’d never even made the KABL connection but it makes sense.

And KORN, WINE, WACO, and KING were what I was looking for (and even, I suppose, WYAT).

I don’t think WHAT would count unless they refer to themselves as “W-Hat” as opposed to “What”.

Thanks, and keep them coming! :slight_smile:

There’s WIND in Chicago - the windy city.

KVHS in the SF East Bay. Run out of the Clayton Valley High School.