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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

On FM, though, the frequencies from the bottom to 92 MHz are reserved for non-profit stations. You can find the local NPR affiliates there, but also college stations and lots of weird & wonderful one-offs. Like KKUP around here:

https://kkup.org/

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Or religious stations, which operate as commercial in all but name. Non-profits and education and weird one-offs (I’ve worked for more than one) struggle to get by independently and are largely subsidized by some larger entity with actual cash flow. Maintaining the licenses and broadcast equipment is no small cost. But yes you’re correct, not all stations are Channels that are Clear or patronized by Snt. Clarity.

Or religious stations.

KKUP, which I actually volunteered at once, is 100% listener-funded. I just heard a song on there that I haven't heard in forever, this morning: Working Class Hero (John Lennon).

Just out of interest what sort of test do you have to pass to be a "Religious Station" ? If I start a cult of Elvis Presley followers do I get to operate a "Religious Station" ?

There's no test. You just have to be a non-profit.

It's a corporate filing status. That's your hurdle. There's a bunch of unusually generous benefits religions get.

For instance, religious workers is a separate and more forgiving visa process for immigration.

Next time you drive down through an immigrant community and see some implausibly high density of churches per block, that's what's going on.

Religious organizations are also exempt from minimum wage laws and have special carve outs for things like food inspection and OSHA.

Also they don't have to do property tax. They get all the protection of the state with zero of the responsibility.

He was talking about owning a radio station, though. Not all that stuff.

> If I start a cult of Elvis Presley followers do I get to operate a "Religious Station" ?

The 24 Hour Church of Elvis[0] definitely should have had a radio station.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hour_Church_of_Elvis

"At the end of the tour, Pierce would try (often desperately) to sell t-shirts."

Heh heh, I bought one!

You and me both.

Real question: where does the 4-letter radio naming scheme comes from? This seems to be a unique US thing.

These are called a “call sign” [1]. The International Telecommunication Union issues prefixes[2], and in the US the Federal Communications Commission issues four- (formerly three-) letter call signs under their prefixes[3][4] to commercial broadcast stations. They also require (or required? not sure what the modern regulations are) stations to regularly announce their call sign for identification purposes, so a lot of radio stations folded the sign into their branding since they had to use it anyway.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_call_signs

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_prefix

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_signs_in_the_United_State...

[4]: Notably, ‘K’ and ‘W’ generally indicate geography, west/east of the Mississippi River respectively.

I know Canada uses C, ex: CHUM-FM and Mexico uses X like XETV in Tijuana that used to be the Fox affiliate for San Diego

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