Technical Changes Coming to KZTM

[TexasTom]

Yakima doesn't matter unless it's on paper. The giant Cascade Range blocks The Bull and just about everything else from Yakima in low-elevation Thurston and Lewis County. Years ago before the herd of translators made their way into Olympia, I could get a few Yakima stations on I-5 around Nisqually - only because of the Mt. Rainier knife-edge technique, signals bouncing off Mt. Rainier and I was in the perfect position to receive them on a map.

When I was a teenager, I could get a weak signal (marginally listenable in mono) on KFFM in the suburbs of Tacoma (sort of between Steilacoom and what is now Lakewood). But that was the only Yakima FM station that I remember being able to pick up, although strangely enough I did get KIOK (which was album rock at the time) from the Tri-Cities a couple times when KUOW was off the air.

As a side note, would KFFM qualify as the Top 40 station that has been in the format the longest in Washington state? It was running automated Top 40 in the late seventies and early eighties, eventually went to a locally programmed live format, and is still Top 40. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know when it dropped the automated format (which was Century 21 Z Format, I think) and went live & local?

 

[crainbebo]

I think KFFM went to live/local top 40 around the mid 1980s. They really are a heritage station - signing on in 1970 and having top 40 for most of that time. In the early 1970s, KQOT 930 was the Top 40 station in Yakima (it's now 10KW KYAK, religious).

 

[jdweaver]

Rimshot signals toward larger markets rarely work out. A wise old consulting engineer once told me: Kelly, it doesn't matter whether AM, FM, or TV; field strength is everything. He was right.

RImshots work fine Kelly if the primary coverage area has a retail base to support it. At one time these stations made financial sense all over the country. You didn't need to cover San Francisco if you had a good signal in the East Bay nor was there need to cover Seattle if you had a good signal in Tacoma or even Olympia. But local community retail has disappeared...and with them the viability of these signals. Also...many suburban stations wanted the prestige and revenue potential of the larger adjacent market - which is where your premise is correct.

 

[Kelly A]

RImshots work fine Kelly if the primary coverage area has a retail base to support it. At one time these stations made financial sense all over the country. You didn't need to cover San Francisco if you had a good signal in the East Bay nor was there need to cover Seattle if you had a good signal in Tacoma or even Olympia. But local community retail has disappeared...and with them the viability of these signals.

Absolutely right JD; where Tacoma used to be sold separately with their own stations. Signals that overlapped into the Seattle market were able to take advantage of selling in Federal Way or Kent/Auburn. Fast forward to 1996 and early 2000's, Seattle/Tacoma becomes one big market. If you don't have a full market signal, agency dollars are harder to find. As you pointed out too; the local grocery store, assuming it hasn't gone under since the Walmart super store moved in, doesn't buy radio anymore. Local signals adjacent to full market signals are relegated to local restaurants (unreliable collections), remaining furniture stores, and occasional local automotive.

Also...many suburban stations wanted the prestige and revenue potential of the larger adjacent market - which is where your premise is correct.

Sure, but many on this discussion board think things haven't changed much from the 80's when adjacent community stations were able to run like islands, let alone compete as a Seattle/Tacoma full market station. It's much tougher to survive as a rimshot, or adjacent station anymore.

 

[TexasTom]

Absolutely right JD; where Tacoma used to be sold separately with their own stations. Signals that overlapped into the Seattle market were able to take advantage of selling in Federal Way or Kent/Auburn. Fast forward to 1996 and early 2000's, Seattle/Tacoma becomes one big market. If you don't have a full market signal, agency dollars are harder to find.

I can confirm this from my own memories of growing up in Tacoma in the seventies; we were very much a distinct market with our own radio stations -- for Top 40, KTAC was big when AM was still dominant, with KNBQ (Q97-FM) gaining by 1980 as FM became dominant. Neither had a decent signal up in Seattle at the time, but both did well on the basis of their success in Pierce County. Tacoma listeners *would* listen to Seattle stations (I remember punching back and forth between KTAC, KJR, and KING-AM in 1976, and a few years later was doing the same with KNBQ, KYYX, and KPLZ), but the reverse wasn't true. But as FM became ever more dominant in the market, the FM stations in Tacoma (KNBQ, KBRD, and KRPM) all boosted power to put a good signal in Seattle, and the days of Tacoma as an independent sub-market came to an end.

At various times, the same thing has probably happened in most hyphenated metros -- for Dallas-Fort Worth, the transition happened sooner, as the move to FM dominating radio also happened earlier here. And at various times in the seventies and eighties, I suspect it happened in many other places.

 

[RF101]

Fybush writes .... " The bigger issues with 92.1 anywhere in the Olympia area are the spacings to KQMV on 92.5 and especially to KYFQ on 91.7. If you're trying to put a class A in on 92.1, you need to be able to show a fully-spaced allocation site that's at least 75 km from KYFQ. That puts you well south of Olympia, down toward Tenino."

Yes, you are indeed correct. KGON and KQMV serve as the big showstoppers here.

At best a new 92.1 Class A could be assigned to a place like Oakville with a placeholder transmitter site in the Capitol State Forest. A notional 60dBu contour would cover into downtown Olympia at best but I suspect realistically it would be insufficient.

 

[bobdavcav]

I would think KYFQ should be the bigger problem, as there are easily spaced C signals at Olympia with Seattle at the same location as KQMV. KYFQ though is on Gold, quite a bit closer to the Olympia stations.

 

[boombox4]

In Yakima 1460 was the Top 40 station for years, first as KIMA then KMWX. Of course, now it's KUTI (ESPN Yakima).

RE: Tacoma: don't forget KLAY, which was the Tacoma rocker back in the day. They played a different range of rock than the Seattle stations did at the time.

Re: advertising: a lot has changed, obviously, due to the internet. A lot of purchasing is online, and the advertising has followed that trend. Adverts for clothing stores like the old "Gap" and "Squire Shop" ads we used to hear when I was young aren't as prevalent on radio, although sometimes I hear a few for the few national chains that still exist.

 

[bigic]

So you're home clear, right? Nope. Because a new 92.1A allocation also has to be fully spaced to KGON's full class C on 92.3, which means 153 km/95 miles, and if you get far enough north to clear KGON, you're no longer clear to KYFQ or KQMV.

Can KGON be involuntarily downgraded to C0? Their HAAT is less than 450 m.

 

[Kelly A]

Can KGON be involuntarily downgraded to C0? Their HAAT is less than 450 m.

The question is: Why bother?

 

[TexasTom]

RE: Tacoma: don't forget KLAY, which was the Tacoma rocker back in the day. They played a different range of rock than the Seattle stations did at the time.

I do remember KLAY(FM) when they were a progressive rock format -- much different sounding that KISW and KZOK in Seattle. To the point, it was much looser and played things that you wouldn't hear on most prog rock stations. Notably, I remember hearing the entire 15+ minute version of Santa Esmerelda's disco cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". I also think that they gave their deejays leeway on putting together music sets to a greater extent than the Seattle stations.

And I remember when the station sold, the plug was pulled on the progressive format, and it became a country jukebox as KRPM(FM).