Question About The Mythical K-Bear (KBHR 570) From "Northern Exposure"

[Schroedingers Cat]

Does anyone know which episode of "Northern Exposure" focused on the "upgrade" of K-Bear?

I remember that they were on the roof of the studio, talking about it. There was a short tower with a couple of vertically polarized folded dipoles for what looked like about a 150 MHz Paging or Two Way transmitter.

Maurice Minnefield was talking about the "upgrade" making it possible to receive K-Bear for 200 miles around Cicely.

There was a poignant comment that there were no PEOPLE to listen to K-Bear 200 miles away from Cicely.

It really reminds me that a lot of "upgrades" really don't accomplish much in the way of greater listenership, ratings, and sales revenues. Class C FM BC stations guarded their facilities for years, including with CPs for unbuildable HAAT increases, to ensure that no one dropped in even a Class A allotment on a second or third adjacent within 65 miles, only to have second adjacent frequency translators now licensed practically on top of them.

Does anyone else think that the DJ name Chris Stevens was a play on the real DJ/Voiceover WLS Personality Kris Erik Stevens?
There is a possible explanation for some of these details. 5000 watt WNAX 570 Yankton, SD DOES get out 200 miles due to the great ground conductivity. And Yankton is within the 0.5 mV/m 50% Skywave Contour of WLS! I imagine that WLS was the go to station at Night for the younger demographic population near Yankton back in the day.

 

[radioman148]

There is a possible explanation for some of these details. 5000 watt WNAX 570 Yankton, SD DOES get out 200 miles due to the great ground conductivity. And Yankton is within the 0.5 mV/m 50% Skywave Contour of WLS! I imagine that WLS was the go to station at Night for the younger demographic population near Yankton back in the day.

I was able to hear WNAX in Galena, Il on a good car radio mid day, 355 miles. I think Chuck Buell grew up in the Dakotas and listened to WLS at night years before he worked there.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Both John Landecker and Bob Seger have mentioned in interviews that they listened to WLS, WCFL, and WLAC at Night, growing up in Ann Arbor. Art Vuolo always said that it was because all but one AM station in Washetenaw County "Ran down at Sundown".

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Chuck Buell worked in Rapid City, SD. From 440 Satisfaction:


Chuck Buell
KRSD [Rapid City SD] 1956
KIMM [Rapid City SD] 1960
KIMN [Denver CO] 1965
WLS [Chicago IL] 1968
KFRC [San Francisco CA] 1974
KIMN [Denver] 1979
KRXY [Denver] 1983
KHTR [St. Louis MO] 1986
KMOX [St. Louis] 1986
KKLT [Phoenix AZ] 1996
KBZT [San Diego CA] 1999-2000

There was another station named KKLS 920 Daytime only in Rapid City and it's FM, KKLS-FM 93.9, now KKMK. They used to have a modified WLS jingle, "Double K LS Rapid City". When 920 signed off, WLS 890 was nearby on the dial.

 

[radioman148]

There was another station named KKLS 920 Daytime only in Rapid City and it's FM, KKLS-FM 93.9, now KKMK. They used to have a modified WLS jingle, "Double K LS Rapid City". When 920 signed off, WLS 890 was nearby on the dial.

Very clever on their part.

 

[schmave]

Both John Landecker and Bob Seger have mentioned in interviews that they listened to WLS, WCFL, and WLAC at Night, growing up in Ann Arbor. Art Vuolo always said that it was because all but one AM station in Washetenaw County "Ran down at Sundown".

Ha! It's understandable.
CKLW certainly wouldn't have come in well there at night either despite the proximity. WJR of course is a blaster there at all hours.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Ha! It's understandable.
CKLW certainly wouldn't have come in well there at night either despite the proximity. WJR of course is a blaster there at all hours.

And of course, WJR was a "Good Music" station. No Top 40/Rock and Roll, none of the time. It is the strongest AM signal in much of Washtenaw County.

The CKLW pattern in that direction at Night is roughly the equivalent of 5 kW, as it was non-DA before they went 50 kW DA-2. They are also several miles further from Washtenaw County than WJR. There was also interference from 500 kW PJB and at times, 150 kW XEROK.

 

[awsherrill]

I remember the episode of "Northern Exposure" where that segment appeared, but I don't remember which episode it was, or which season. If I recall correctly, it was part of the "cold open" before the title sequence with the moose running around. So it was not one of the main episode "acts", and so it would not have been part of the episode summary (making it that much harder to find on any database).

I think the episode probably aired earlier in the show's run, maybe in the first or second season.

I do remember (as a broadcast engineer with a fair amount of hands-on AM experience) scoffing a bit at the idea of a station on 570, with an absurdly short antenna. Sure, a real 570 antenna would have looked nothing like that. But such details are really not important for TV storytelling.

If I remember right, they ended up accidentally dropping the "antenna" and knocking the station off the air for a bit.

The portrayal of the fictional "K-Bear" radio station was one I always found enjoyable as someone who works in the business. But every time they showed "Chris Stevens" working in the studio, I never failed to notice that his Shure microphone was missing the foam pop filter.

 

[radioman148]

Chuck Buell worked in Rapid City, SD. From 440 Satisfaction:


Chuck Buell
KRSD [Rapid City SD] 1956
KIMM [Rapid City SD] 1960
KIMN [Denver CO] 1965
WLS [Chicago IL] 1968
KFRC [San Francisco CA] 1974
KIMN [Denver] 1979
KRXY [Denver] 1983
KHTR [St. Louis MO] 1986
KMOX [St. Louis] 1986
KKLT [Phoenix AZ] 1996
KBZT [San Diego CA] 1999-2000

I believe Buell grew up in or very near Rapid City.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

John Falsey, co creator of Northern Exposure, went to The University of Iowa in Iowa City to get an MFA in the late 1970s, so it's very likely he could have listened to WLS at Night in Iowa City and heard Kris Erik Stevens. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, so we can't ask him. WSUI 910 might have made listening a challenge at times, but not like a highly processed 910 like a commercial station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falsey

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

John Falsey, co creator of Northern Exposure, apparently spent time in Iowa and went to The University of Iowa in Iowa City to get an MFA in the 1970s, so it's very likely he could have listened to WLS at Night in Iowa City and heard Kris Erik Stevens. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, in Iowa, so we can't ask him. WSUI 910 might have made listening a challenge at times, but not like a highly processed 910 like a commercial station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falsey

Bill Prady, was a writer and executive producer of Dharma and Greg, which had a character named Peter Cavanaugh, lived in Oakland County, MI, within the fringe listening areas of WTAC, WWCK, and WIOT, where DJ and later Reams Broadcasting President Peter C. Cananaugh, worked when Prady was growing up.

It could have been subliminal with both.

 

[radioman148]

John Falsey, co creator of Northern Exposure, went to The University of Iowa in Iowa City to get an MFA in the late 1970s, so it's very likely he could have listened to WLS at Night in Iowa City and heard Kris Erik Stevens. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, so we can't ask him. WSUI 910 might have made listening a challenge at times, but not like a highly processed 910 like a commercial station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falsey

If he was at the University of Iowa in the late 70s he wasn't hearing Kris Stevens then because he had left WLS in the early 70s.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

It looks like John Falsey lived in Iowa for large portions of his life, he went to U of I and he died there.He wasn't born there, and he went to undergraduate school elsewhere.