Call signs in Canada
Official identifiers assigned to radio and television stations in Canada / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Call signs in Canada are official identifiers issued to the country's radio and television stations. Assignments for broadcasting stations are made by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), while amateur stations receive their call signs from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (previously Industry Canada). Conventional radio and television broadcasting stations assignments are generally three, four or five letters long (not including the "–FM", "–TV", or "–DT" suffix) and almost exclusively use "C" call signs; with a few exceptions noted below, the "V" calls are restricted to specialized uses such as amateur radio.
Call sign prefixes are coordinated internationally by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and Canada has been assigned CF–CK, VA–VG, VO, VX-VY and XJ–XO. "CB" series calls are officially assigned to Chile by the ITU, but Canada makes de facto use of this series for stations belonging to, but not exclusively broadcasting programs from, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Special broadcast undertakings such as Internet radio, cable FM, carrier current or closed circuit stations may sometimes be known by unofficial identifiers such as "CSCR". These are not governed by the Canadian media regulation system, and may be letter sequences that would not be permissible for a conventional broadcast station.
Three-letter call signs are only permitted to CBC Radio stations or to commercial stations which received their three-letter call sign before the current rules were adopted.