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22 | LIFE IN SOLERA | AUGUST 2024 | This & That By the Solera Ghostwriter This is for the Solera Radio Club: Why do the United States radio and TV stations call letters begin with W or K? The equipment used by radio and TV stations to broadcast their programs is capable of transmitting over a wide range of frequencies. To make sure that these broadcasts do not interfere with each other, the government of each country tells each station which frequency it may use and assigns to it a unique call sign usually consisting of four letters. The station must then use this call sign periodically to identify its broadcast and assigned frequencies. Under an international agreement, each country has been allotted a specific series of four-letter call signs. For example, Japan was allotted all call signs beginning with the letter J, Canada all call signs beginning with the letter B, and France those beginning with the letter C. The United States was assigned two series of call signs: those beginning with K for stations west of the Mississippi and those beginning with W for stations east of the Mississippi. In order to receive a license from the FCC, all radio and TV stations in the United States must use call signs beginning with one of these two letters. Is a hamburger really a HAMburger? The Tartars, a Turkic-speaking people who lived in central Asia, were rugged, nomadic horse people who ate raw beef. Rugged though they were, they soon decided that raw meat would be a lot easier to chew if they could find a way to tenderize it. Eventually, they did find a way. Before a long day's ride, they would put a slab of beef under their saddles and let the up and down motion of the horse pound the meat to bits. At the end of the ride, they would scrape the tender morsels into a heap, season it with salt, pepper, and onion juice, and eat what today we call steak tartare. A merchant from Hamburg, Germany, who was doing some trading in Asia in the mid-19th century came upon the Tartars' recipe and took it back to Germany, where it was introduced as Hamburg steak. Later, a cook in Hamburg decided to broil the meat, and by the end of the 19th century, this concoction was called hamburger meat. Hamburger meat, it is believed, was brought to the United States in the 1800s by German immigrants. In 1904, at the World's Fair in St. Louis, broiled hamburger patties in buns were sold for the first time and were called just "hamburgers." Why does a cash register ring? A cash register rings to announce that someone has opened the cash drawer and has access to the cash. It was hoped that, by drawing attention to the opening of the cash drawer, the bell would discourage employee theft. In fact, one of the first cash registers with a bell was called a "thief catcher."

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