Talk:VOCM (AM)

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*sigh* VOCM is the official callsign of the FM radio station. See this list; see also here. Bearcat 02:55, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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to conform with other radio station articles, this article should be renamed "VOCM-AM"

(AM) is inconsistent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.56.145.130 (talk • contribs) 19:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

What "other station articles" are you referring to? Neither Industry Canada nor the FCC, nor any authority I'm aware of, use any "-AM" suffix; they all use a base callsign by itself. (AM stations came before FM and TV stations, and as a result there was never a need for a suffix as there is with many FM/TV stations.) All other AM station articles I can think of either use the base callsign by itself, i.e. WFAN, or use "AM" in parentheses, often because there's another FM or TV station with the same base. Please refer to Wikipedia:Naming conventions#North America for further explanation. — stickguy (:^›)— || talk || 22:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

for naming convention, see CKRA-FM, CIRK-FM, CKIX-FM, and just about any article referrring to a radio station in North America.

The suffix -AM is necessary, as you can have two different radio stations with the same calls on different bands. There currently exists VOCM-AM, VOCM-FM, and VOCM-FM-1. If you just refer to VOCM, then that isn't specific. As an aside, if VOCM were to get a TV station, they could call it VOCM-TV.

Visit crtc.gc.ca to see official callsigns in use. -AM -FM and -TV are a required part of the callsign. 64.56.145.130 15:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. The station articles you refer to have something in common: They are all FM stations. AM station articles such as CFRB (AM), CJCL (AM), CKNW (AM), do not use the suffix, and to be perfectly honest the "(AM)" is actually redundant in those cases, although that's a separate matter. By the way, a quick search for "VOCM" at crtc.gc.ca shows several CRTC documents, almost all of which identify the AM station as simply "VOCM". The same goes for any other AM radio station. The (unofficial) document you seem to be referring to appears to be a misprint as it is contradicted by the other, official CRTC documents, as well as the (unfortunately not easily web-accessible) Industry Canada databases I've used in the past.

You are correct that with the existence of VOCM-FM, "VOCM" by itself is not sufficiently specific. That's why we use "(AM)" in cases like this - but the official call sign simply has no suffix. Any other questions on this matter, feel free to ask. — stickguy (:^›)— || talk || 16:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)