Not sure when this started, but KWYZ 1230 kHz in Everett -- the closest AM station to my location -- seems to have its transmitter on tonight, but it's not running any audio. This isn't the first time that KWYZ has been either off the air or just running an open carrier in recent years. At least it's making for a nice DXing window on that frequency.
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KWYZ 1230 in Everett running open carrier
- Thread starter Treehouse SWL
- Start date
KWYZ was running its usual Radio Hankook programming again when I checked earlier this afternoon.
Honestly, it’s because the pie’s shrinking and most business-minded folks don’t have the creative chops to make something worthwhile.
I remember (I think it was on here) said “if you want to see the state of AM radio today, look at shortwave 20 years ago.”
What was on shortwave (besides national broadcasters) 20 years ago?
“Ethnic” programming, religious oddballs, and paranoid right-leaning talk radio.
Sounds about like the state of AM radio these days.
That being said, Radio Hankook should do well for a while. The big wave of Korean immigrants to North Seattle-Snohomish was from the 80s-90s. Most have had kids who have grown up in the area and listen to the standard English radio in the area, go shopping at Safeway/Haggen/Fred Meyer.
The first generation? Still going shopping at G-Mart, talking to the man at the customer service desk to get him a pack of “real” Korean Marlboros (at half the cost, mind you) and feel happy they have radio in a language they’re fully comfortable with. They’re in their 50s-60s now, so will probably be quite happy tuning in AM for the next decade or so until they have to move in with their children.
What are “real” Korean Marlboros vs the US brand?
Marlboros sold in South Korea.
It’s been a decade since I smoked em. I don’t know if they’re domestically produced in South Korea, or if they’re the European Marlboros made in Switzerland in a Korean pack. They taste different…
Big thing in a place like Washington where (last I checked in 2017) a pack of US Marlboros with a WA tax stamp will set you back $11, Korean Marlboros were $3-5 depending on what store you bought em at.
If you didn’t speak Korean, you were 100% not getting them unless someone introduced you to the seller.
…back in those days when I smoked, if it wasn’t Korean Marlboros, I’d buy Export A’s.
I've never smoked, so I can't comment on that topic above, but there is indeed a loyal audience of older Koreans up here in Snohomish County. The dry cleaning shop I use here in Lake Stevens is owned by an older Korean couple (older meaning they're probably in their 60s), and they always have KWYZ on the radio or Korean soaps on the TV in the back.
Before my youngest kid started driving last year, I drove her to before-school jazz band practice on school days. Right at 7 a.m., KWYZ would (and still does, I assume) play some sort of morning stretching program for just a minute or two. I don't speak a lick of Korean, but we both enjoyed listening to that.
Before my youngest kid started driving last year, I drove her to before-school jazz band practice on school days. Right at 7 a.m., KWYZ would (and still does, I assume) play some sort of morning stretching program for just a minute or two. I don't speak a lick of Korean, but we both enjoyed listening to that.
What was on shortwave (besides national broadcasters) 40 years ago? Most of the programming you cite, along with private broadcasters in the tropical bands (almost all of whom are now on FM for its better sound quality and dependable coverage in the cities those stations serve), and dismal American commercial failures like WRNO and KUSW, the operators of which thought multinational corporations would pay big bucks to sell their products to a global audience. AM is not dying because of lack of programming ideas. It is dying because everything (not just music) sounds better on FM or high-bitrate digital. And it is dying because local radio is a LOCAL medium, meant to entertain local listeners while serving the interests of local advertisers. Those listeners in all those far-off cities and states never generated a dime for AM radio in the "good old days."
KWYZ is a simulcast of KSUH Puyallup, so it's a small network called Radio Hankook. It looks like they try to appeal to young Koreans with K-Pop music, and a Korean Children's program. As well as on air teaching English as a second language.
My old Korean-American roommate loved watching those soaps. I don’t think she spoke much Korean, but she once showed me an animated parody of them (I think it was from a South Park episode) and it was hilarious.
KWYZ/KSUH does carry some English programming from the state broadcaster - KBS. The content is K-Pop related if I recall. I have stumbled across it a few times.
They do stream : http://50.222.186.230:8080
They do stream : http://50.222.186.230:8080
19:45 PST . As I write this KWYZ is in English... with K-Pop. Here's the answer to my earlier comment. At 19:00 they run a show called "K-Pop Connection" in English from KBS World Radio
world.kbs.co.kr
Enrollment in Korean language classes is booming at universities and high schools. The crazy growth is due to (1) K-Pop (2) New Korean cinema (3) All-other things Korean. I hope Hankook Radio gets to financially ride the wave.
K-POP Connection l KBS WORLD
Meet high-quality contents on KBS WORLD Radio in 11 languages, including news, K-pop, and online Korean-language classes. Also available are programs featuring life, culture, tourism and history of Korea and update news on North Korea.
Enrollment in Korean language classes is booming at universities and high schools. The crazy growth is due to (1) K-Pop (2) New Korean cinema (3) All-other things Korean. I hope Hankook Radio gets to financially ride the wave.
Here's a shocker... Most radio stations don't have overnight staffing! And a larger shock... apparently most stations (AM or FM) don't have "silence sensors".
We do, and we know when there's a problem at "o'dark thirty". Compared to the other equipment, a silence sensor is cheap and easy. Ours are set for 20 seconds dead air.
One of my stations had a hard drive failure a few nights ago... thanks to silence sense, our IT guy was able to come in and diagnose the problem, installed a new drive etc, all while everybody else was sleeping. Absent the sensor, we would've been down during morning drive for two hours.
We do, and we know when there's a problem at "o'dark thirty". Compared to the other equipment, a silence sensor is cheap and easy. Ours are set for 20 seconds dead air.
One of my stations had a hard drive failure a few nights ago... thanks to silence sense, our IT guy was able to come in and diagnose the problem, installed a new drive etc, all while everybody else was sleeping. Absent the sensor, we would've been down during morning drive for two hours.
I'm really surprised that more stations don't have some kind of dead air detection. A friend was telling me about a high school station she knew about that did not program on weekends, but kept its transmitter on. From her description, the station was live 6A-11P Monday through Friday. Overnights, a preprogrammed playlist ran to keep something on the air, but it was only a 24 hour list. So, you would have had dead air every weekend from 11P Saturday until 6A Monday. I'm assuming the station was shut down completely during the summer and school breaks.
Wasn't there just a few years ago a case in Alabama where an AM radio tower was just taken?
No, not entirely. Still, although it was fading, there were hundreds and hundreds of "Tropical Band" shortwave stations broadcasting to a national, not international, audience in nations as large as Peru, Brazil and Indonesia (to name a few).
Native language radio is more than just "a language they're fully comfortable with". It is about programming that matches their culture and interests and plays music they grew up on and gives a bit of news about the land they are from.
That was an incredibly strange story. I'm still not sure whether the tower was really stolen or whether the owner was just trying to get attention, as others said that the station had been off the air for some time and the tower dismantled.
And most especially, that other problem. The one we don't talk about.
Nobody was listening to AM 1240 to notice.
I would suspect technical and mostly financial issues continue to plague "Quiz" KWYZ and KSUH (owner's last name is Suh).
The FCC issued a "notice of apparent liability" against Suh for violations by KWYZ and KSUH on August 28, 2002, for a combined total of $22,000. After determining that Suh did not in fact own the KSUH tower, they reduced the penalty to $10,000 in late August 2003.
Faced with mounting debts and financial difficulties, Radio Hankook owner Jean J. Suh moved KWYZ and KSUH out of their rented studios in a commercial area of Federal Way to her private residence in May 2000. This move brought on complaints from neighbors, visits from city code enforcement officers, and a public campaign by Radio Hankook to force the city to allow the studios to remain in Suh's home. Ultimately, the city prevailed over increasing community resistance and the stations moved out of the home in late April 2001.
The FCC issued a "notice of apparent liability" against Suh for violations by KWYZ and KSUH on August 28, 2002, for a combined total of $22,000. After determining that Suh did not in fact own the KSUH tower, they reduced the penalty to $10,000 in late August 2003.
Faced with mounting debts and financial difficulties, Radio Hankook owner Jean J. Suh moved KWYZ and KSUH out of their rented studios in a commercial area of Federal Way to her private residence in May 2000. This move brought on complaints from neighbors, visits from city code enforcement officers, and a public campaign by Radio Hankook to force the city to allow the studios to remain in Suh's home. Ultimately, the city prevailed over increasing community resistance and the stations moved out of the home in late April 2001.
While driving through Everett the other day I heard one of the poorest sounding translators ever... 102.1 K271CS which relays KWYZ. Low audio, tinny. I thought FM translators were to save AM. The 1230 AM Radio Hankook audio sounds fine though. 102.1 could have such greater coverage if it were located not on that river-bottom area AM tower.