P2P-Zone - Quick question...

have wondered the same thing..

Quote:

With the adoption by the United States, in 1912, of an act to regulate radio stations, call letter assignments became formalized under federal authority. Under international agreement unique initial letters were allotted among the various nations. The 1914 edition of Radio Stations of the United States records the contemporary practices for allocating calls for sea and commercial land stations, which at this time were few enough so that all could be given three-letter calls:

The call letters assigned to the United States are all combinations (676) beginning with the letter N and all (676) beginning with the letter W, and all combinations (598) from KDA to KZZ, inclusive. [NOTE: KAA-KCZ was allocated to Germany at this time, and was not assigned to the United States until 1929.] The total number of international calls is thus 1,950, and these are reserved for Government stations and stations open to public and limited commercial service. All combinations beginning with the letter N are reserved for Government stations and in addition the combinations from WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ are reserved for the stations of the Army of the United States.

The combinations KDA to KZZ, with a few exceptions, are reserved for ship stations on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico and for land stations on the Pacific coast. The combinations beginning with W (except WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ as already indicated) are reserved, with a few exceptions, for ship stations on the Pacific and Great Lakes and for land stations on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the Great Lakes region.

Notice the policy was that calls for ocean-going ship stations started with a different letter than the land stations they communicated with: in the West ships received W-- calls and land stations were assigned K--, while the reverse was true in the East, with K-- ship calls and W-- land calls. (NOTE: The assignment of W and K to the United States appears to have been completely arbitrary--they have no particular significance. N, however, had been commonly used by the U.S. Navy since November, 1909).

http://earlyradiohistory.us/3myst.htm