And here’s a nifty bit of trivia resulting from that fact.
For many years, I worked in radio, and collected various radio ephemera: bumper and window stickers, rate cards, business cards, letterhead, etc. I was keenly interested in call letters, their history and significance.
It’s fairly common knowledge that, in general, stations east of the Mississippi were issued call letters starting with “W” and those west of the river with a “K.” Furthermore, Canadian stations were assigned a very logical “C,” and “X” was given to Mexico.
So, in thumbing through the Broadcasting magazine yearbook one day in the 1970s, I stumbled across three stations, all in St. Johns, Newfoundland, with a “V” prefix: VOAR, VOCM and VOWR.
What gives? I thought. In those pre-Internet days, I couldn’t find anything at our local library to answer the question, so I wrote to all three stations. And all three stations were kind enough to respond and explain to this poor ignorant 'Murikin that Newfoundland had been a separate dominion at the time such letters were handed out by international agreement, and “V” was assigned to Newfoundland. All three stations kept the unique call letters after the merger with Canada.
Just checked, and they still have them. What’s more, it looks like VOCM was able to add an FM with those calls.
I appreciated the gentle way the stations dealt with me, but it was a real eye-opener. I was a college graduate, a political science major with a keen interest in history, and here was a country on our borders right up until the year I was born, and I had no clue.
Shows you how abysmally little the education system of the 50s and 60s spent on our neighbor nations.
Somehow, I suspect it might still be true today.
Sigh.