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K-Mozart is back on 1260

...But during that year of no commercials, I had enormous fun programming the music sets, bringing music from trips to the different countries and having the only FM for about 1000 miles around. No ads, no need to worry about clients. I was about 20 at the time, so it was my "Nintendo" in 1967!

I'll bet Saul has more fun with that one than with the FM.
How many FM receivers do you estimate existed in your markets back in those days? Probably not very many. So you likely were programming for and to yourself because next-to-nobody knew your stations existed.
 
How many FM receivers do you estimate existed in your markets back in those days? Probably not very many. So you likely were programming for and to yourself because next-to-nobody knew your stations existed.
There were tens of thousands, I discovered. In Ecuador, middle and upper income households all had European radio/record player consoles that literally filled a wall in the living room. Most had FM. And the European brands of good portables, like Philips and Grundig and Telefunken all had FM. American electronics did not sell in Ecuador, so nearly every radio had FM.

TV had not reached us in 1967. We just had HCJB, the evangelical shortwave station, which had put on a TV station but most programming was religious, and a good amount was in English... which nearly nobody spoke well enough to enjoy.

Two years later, my first independent FM was #2 in ratings in upper income homes, and top 5 in middle income; that was a 35 station market then. Since those were the groups that ad agencies used predominantly, the FM was enormously profitable by its second year; it made more than any of my AM stations.

And in the first year of operation, I knew something was happening as every store, restaurant, hair salon and the like had it on all day. One of the first fans was the local station chief for Lufthansa, and when we started selling spots ( 6 per hour, 20" each) he was an advertiser. He liked the station so much he gave us trips to Germany and other places in Europe just so I would not sell ads to any other international airline serving Europe.
 
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Two points and a question.

1) I believe the soon-to-be KMZT will be the only AM station currently in the U.S. with a classical music format. (The one on the east coast near Wilmington, NC, turned in its license a few years back.)

2) Saul Lewinsky is not the only single owner of an AM radio station in the U.S. Rollye James owns the license for KJAA-AM (1240 kHz) licensed to Globe, AZ. While she has had only one format on that frequency, it is a good one, especially if you like rarely (and possibly never before heard) oldies from the 50s, 60s and 70s. And yes, it's streamed!

3) My question is about that FM translator. Having been born and partially raised in Tujunga, gone to undergraduate college at Loyola Marymount University, and having relatives that lived in the San Fernando Valley anywhere between Granada Hills and Simi Valley, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where a good place for an FM translator at 98.3mHz could be located. In the west valley from Granada Hills on up, KDAR-FM from Thousand Oaks does well on that frequency; and east of the Sunland-Tujunga area down to downtown Los Angeles on the west, KRCV-FM from West Covina also puts in a pretty good signal. I'm assuming the FCC found a place to put this translator but I can't help thinking that its reach is highly impaired because of the two full power stations to its east and west, respectively.
 
Once again, a reminder about the unique station which operates at 1260 from a transmitter site in the far northern San Fernando Valley:

It is not there to make money. Its sister FM, KKGO/105.1, pays all the bills. And since Saul Levine is the original owner of 105.1 (having put it on the air for the first time way back in 1959), he has no debt service. He paid cash for 1260 back in 1993.

1260 is his personal possession. He does with it whatever he feels like doing. And he has earned the right to do so. He no more cares about KUSC being established in the current format than he was when he was the third all-news station in the market 30 years ago. Most of his reasoning for going Talk was his feeling that the late Michael Jackson still had opinions worth sharing.

So if anyone has any snide remarks about this latest format flip, I would personally appreciate it if they kept those to themselves and not post them here. Saul has the right to expect respect. He's earned it.
Good for him. And as a somewhat new member to this forum, I find there is a heavy dose of “snide” to a lot of postings, making it appear that several members seem to loath the very thing this forum is about (?).
 
Couldn't he at least called it "K-Bach" or "K-Beethoven" this time? Why keep giving Mozart all the credit?

Because he trademarked K Mozart:

Wordmark
wordmarkK-MOZART
Status
LiveRegistered
Owners
Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters, Inc. (CORPORATION; California, USA)

Why did he trademark Mozart? Maybe he likes Mozart.

BTW the classical station in Phoenix is K-Bach.
 
3) My question is about that FM translator. Having been born and partially raised in Tujunga, gone to undergraduate college at Loyola Marymount University, and having relatives that lived in the San Fernando Valley anywhere between Granada Hills and Simi Valley, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where a good place for an FM translator at 98.3mHz could be located. In the west valley from Granada Hills on up, KDAR-FM from Thousand Oaks does well on that frequency; and east of the Sunland-Tujunga area down to downtown Los Angeles on the west, KRCV-FM from West Covina also puts in a pretty good signal. I'm assuming the FCC found a place to put this translator but I can't help thinking that its reach is highly impaired because of the two full power stations to its east and west, respectively.

First, Ted, I know it was probably an inadvertent choice of words because you know better, but it isn't the FCC that has to "find a place" for a transmitter, it is the responsibility of the applicant and includes engineering studies to prove non-interference.

That being said, the map for K252FO at FCCdata.org shows the translator being adjacent to the Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, near the point where the 405 freeway separates from the 5.

I checked the maps for both KDAR and KRCV against that map, and the protected contour for the Oxnard station is entirely within Ventura County. The translator has a signal contour entirely within the San Fernando Valley. For KRCV, the protected contour ends around Glendale and the translator stops just short of Burbank in that direction.

So while it's a tight fit, it's legal ... despite your presumptions.
 
Couldn't he at least called it "K-Bach" or "K-Beethoven" this time? Why keep giving Mozart all the credit?

KMozart sounds better as a word and makes for better call letters. KBCH is taken and what would you pick for calls on KBeethoven, which is a mouthful./

Call change to KMZT filed today.


And here, all along I've been calling it KMZT. Thats what it was when i heard it up here a few times
 
The whole "digital stereo" thing is a load of hooey. According to a friend in L.A., 1260 is just transmitting a plain analog mono signal, with no trace of either C-Quam or HD Radio.

Maybe Saul still has the HD exciter in the rack, but it hasn't been switched on in years.
He shut down the hd thing with KSURF back in 2020
 
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