[78-L] Michael Forman-WAAT, Newark NJ - anyone connected to this station in the 1940's ?

[Michael Biel]

Steven C. Barr wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Thomas Stern" <sternth at attglobal.net>
>   
>>  Do either of the DJ's you know date back to the earlier period, or 
>> perhaps know anyone
>> from that era?  Might be able to locate someone who knows something about
>> Michael Forman.
>>
>>     
> The way AM calls were originally assigned, WAAT would have been one of
> the VERY first! They started with WAAA-Z, then WBAA-Z,  and so on...
> this is why WBBM is also a VERY old call!
>
> ...stevenc 

While most of the early calls were issued sequentially, they did not 
start with WAAA-Z then WBAA-Z, they started with KD- - because KA thru 
KC was assigned to Germany.  The first commercial license was KDKA which 
followed a ship with KDJZ, then might have done KDKB, but I'm not sure 
they did that.  In 1921 they went to 3 letter calls, such as going thru  
WBA thru WBZ (which was Westinghouse in Springfield Mass) and WJA thru 
WJY and WJZ (which was RCA in Newark NJ).   They went back to 
four-letter calls in 1922 with WAAB because they had a rule against 
three of the same letters in a row.  So WAAT was in 1922. 

I've got a couple of the actual early lists somewhere, but there is a 
good article at

http://broadcasting.wikia.com/wiki/United_States_call_letter_assignments


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com