2 S.F. FM History questions

[e-dawg]

Speaking of 93.3 history. Can someone tell me the history of power and transmitter location before they end up near Lake Chabot.


Thanks.

 

[fybush]

Hey, T.J. It sounds like you're working on a local radio history project. Why don't you join the California Historical Radio Society and give us a hand?

http://www.bayarearadio.org/

T.J. has been all over the boards here for the last year or so, scouring the brains of R-I posters looking for information. He's been asked several times what he's working on, and there have been vague promises of "a website," but never anything concrete, and recently he's just stopped answering the question at all, at least that I've seen.

It's too bad, really. There's sort of an unwritten code among radio historians - at least the ones I hang with - that the whole point of what we do is to share our knowledge as widely as possible. David Gleason gives back (and then some!) with his American Broadcast History site; I do my best with the Tower Site of the Week segments at fybush.com; there are some wonderful market-specific resources like the Bay Area Radio Museum/CHRS, and so on.

But to ask for all this help and then give nothing back? That's kind of uncool.

 

[thebeach33445]

Hey BossRadioDJ and Scott Fybush:

Thanks for your responce. I am working on correct and accurate info for L.A, San Diego and now The Bay Area. I am a big time radio history buff myself being born and raised in New York. I've seen alot and met alot of amazing jocks.

L.A and san Diego have there own sites where when I am done I will give them all my info and they can put ot on their sites as well.

This is tough work and it is taking me a long time to do it.

Boss radio DJ I love your site http://www.bayarearadio.org/. When I am done with my research if you want I will give you the info I have so you can put it on your site. OK? It is a great place for it.

If you both can help me in anyway that would be great!!

Thanks
T.J.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

When I am done with my research if you want I will give you the info I have so you can put it on your site. OK? It is a great place for it.

T.J.,

The problem is that we have nearly all the information you are looking for -- I've got reams and reams of material about Bay Area radio that contains all the stuff you are inquiring about. Every time you ask, if I have the info close by, I'll go to the file and grab it.

Unfortunately, I have hardly the time to go through all of it myself for the museum website, let alone post it here every time you ask. If you're interested, you don't have to start from scratch. Volunteer with CHRS and help out.

We've got thousands of hours of reels, cassettes and discs that need to be digitized, and dozens of boxes of documents that need to be scanned. I could certainly use the assistance, but please don't do everything from scratch if we've already got the research material here.

 

[thebeach33445]

BossRadioDJ:

Most of my research is complete (85%) thanks to your site and past Billboard magazine issues. 85% of the info I have found is from your site which I love. Keep up the good work.

I am doing mostly format histories of all FM and AM stations. I just have some format blanks that I am trying to find out and when I do I would like to give you all of that info to put on your site.

I just posted a list of all of the classical music stations past and present in the bay area. Please take that info and use it on your site.

Thanks for all of your help and your site.

T.J.

 

[e-dawg]

I see 93.3 has a construction permit to move their tower from Lake Chabot to San Bruno Mtn. Does anybody know when will the move take place?

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?call=KRZZ

 

[SFStatic]

LOL! Big surprise. In the early 90's they used to run off the "backup" site often to work on problems over in the East Bay...the real problem was the coverage from there sucked. Originally, they thought the East Bay site would give better coverage in the South Bay, but overall, it gave them less coverage.

 

[DavidKaye]

LOL! Big surprise. In the early 90's they used to run off the "backup" site often to work on problems over in the East Bay...the real problem was the coverage from there sucked. Originally, they thought the East Bay site would give better coverage in the South Bay, but overall, it gave them less coverage.

Yeah, it was a mistake to move from Candlestick Hill, probably the optimal site in the Bay Area, and to my mind better than Bruno because it's lower and has no hills nearby.

 

[SFStatic]

It absolutely is better, but check the angle of the guy wires...there's not a lot of real estate up there it's a bit tight.

 

[thebeach33445]

Hey Guys:

I noticed this during my research:

1. When did KABL become Soft AC "B-98"? I thought it was Soft AC "Cable 98".

2. When did KSAN become Mainsteam AOR? I thought they where Classic Rock "The Bone".

Thnaks

T.J.

 

[LKellerIII]

Hey Guys:

I noticed this during my research:

1. When did KABL become Soft AC "B-98"? I thought it was Soft AC "Cable 98".

2. When did KSAN become Mainsteam AOR? I thought they where Classic Rock "The Bone".

Thnaks

T.J.

If KABL FM was ever called "B-98" it must have been for a very short period. In 1990 (possibly a year or two earlier), KABL-FM flipped from Beautiful Music to soft rock format for awhile....but they still called it "Cable" - KABL. I remember 1990 because I worked for a car dealership that year that piped KABL into the showroom. KABL kept long-time DJ Bill Moen in the morning - until he retired. Otherwise, it was a copy of Lite Rock KOIT, which flipped to the format first. I'm not sure how long it lasted (I'm bad at remembering dates), but they became "Big 98.1" by 93 or 94, playing hits of the 70s. When Clear Channel hoovered up the bigger AM/FM Corporation (Chancellor Media), they acquired the station, and it became K-Big 98.1, with the call letters KBGG until the flip to the current Classic Soul (Old School) about 97 or 98.

 

[SFStatic]

KABL was B-98 for a short while before it became "Big 98.1FM, the Biggest Hits of the 70's All the Time."

 

[onairb]

I think 'B-98' only lasted a few months, spring-summer of '93; Joe Montana did a commercial for them, right around the time he left the 49ers..'B-98...Catch it!' When did the 'Big 98.1' format start?

 

[Lou_S]

KEAR got a bigger, but more northerly signal, CBS got a comparable signal, but more centrally located to the Bay Area market, as well as a tax deduction.

Interesting, since both 97.3 and 106.9 are on Mt. Beacon with 82 and 80 Kw, respectively.

The only thing "northerly" about KEAR's signal after the move is it's dial position. That's also the entire reason CBS initiated the 3 way swap - they felt a mid-band FM dial position was preferable to hanging at the end of the dial.

 

[DavidKaye]

It absolutely is better, but check the angle of the guy wires...there's not a lot of real estate up there it's a bit tight.

The original tower was self-supporting until it was blown over in a storm not long after Bonneville bought the stations (1260 and 93.3). It originally had "KYA" call letters on the side. I understand that the call letters offered too much wind resistance and that this was why the tower blew over. But I don't remember if the KYA had been replaced by KOIT or not when it blew over. Considering that the tower survived wind storms since the 1930s, if the KYA sign had still been up there then this is a good argument in favor of 3-letter callsigns....

 

[DavidKaye]

The only thing "northerly" about KEAR's signal after the move is it's dial position. That's also the entire reason CBS initiated the 3 way swap - they felt a mid-band FM dial position was preferable to hanging at the end of the dial.

Are you absolutely sure 97.3 was on Beacon in 1977? I was told that the location had everything to do with it. I could have sworn that 97.3 was on Mt. San Bruno in 1977. Oh well, you learn something new every day.

 

[Lou_S]

The original tower was self-supporting until it was blown over in a storm not long after Bonneville bought the stations (1260 and 93.3). It originally had "KYA" call letters on the side. I understand that the call letters offered too much wind resistance and that this was why the tower blew over.

The call letters may have contributed, but according to whispers at the BABES meetings, the real culprit was a defectively spec'd replacement base insulator on one leg of the tower. The new insulator had no tensile strength - it could not withstand stretching forces and failed when winds lifted that corner of the tower.

That's why the tower came down in one piece instead of breaking further up like most collapses. The base insulator at the upwind corner failed and the tower toppled over intact.

 

[Lou_S]

Are you absolutely sure 97.3 was on Beacon in 1977?

Quite sure - I hung around Mt.Beacon while I was in high school and then was KRQR's Transmitter Supervisor from 1988-1998.

KEAR moved to Mt. Beacon in 1969 and installed a Sparta 620 transmitter and an RCA 8 bay circularly polarized antenna. It was designed with a slight amount of downward beam tilt to put the peak of the main lobe at the horizon in San Jose. I think it was something like 0.5 degrees, but I'm not sure. In the late 1980s Hammett and Edison did a helicopter survey of all the Mt Beacon stations and determined the antenna was working exactly as designed. In spite of earning the nickname "Big F***ing Ember" in several other markets, this antenna performed flawlessly at it's full rated power until it was replaced in 2006.

In 1977, the KCBS-AM transmitter in Novato had only a 50 Kw standby generator. It was installed in 1959 along with the Continental 10 Kw auxiliary transmitter and could (obviously) only power the 10 Kw aux, not the 50 Kw main transmitter. Prior to that, KCBS had only the original 50 Kw G.E. transmitter and no standby power at all.

When CBS purchased 97.3, they decided to upgrade the KCBS generator to 250 Kw and moved the 1959 Caterpillar generator to Mt. Beacon. They also installed a McMartin FM25k transmitter and moved the Sparta to auxiliary status.

The McMartin proved to be unstable when I was there - it's synchronous AM was atrocious which added to received multipath and drove our two SCA clients nuts. The Sparta was much better in this regard, so around 1990 we returned the Sparta to main duty and made the McMartin the aux, pending it's replacement. That finally happened in 1995, when we installed a BE FM20B. The Sparta continued as the aux until it was finally retired in 2005.

KMPX (106.9) was also on Beacon, with a 5 Kw RCA transmitter feeding a 16-bay horizontal-only antenna to make 80 Kw. When Family Stations took over 106.9, they replaced this with a parallel pair of AEL 20 Kw transmitters for 40 Kw TPO and a 4 bay circularly polarized antenna. The transmitters were installed in a new room under the existing carport, and the top third of the KMPX tower was replaced with a pylon holding the new antenna. The pieces leftover pieces were later assembled on another foundation and today hold the auxiliary antennas for KDFC and 98.1

 

[thebeach33445]

Hey Guys:

I was hoping you can help me with the exact dates on the formats for KSFX 103.7:

KSFX becomes Disco?

KSFX becomes AOR?

I am going through my lists and I am going to post the past to present Oldies staions and then R&B stations for you guys. Just need to make sure my dates are correct.

Thanks

T.J.

 

[DavidKaye]

Quite sure - I hung around Mt.Beacon while I was in high school and then was KRQR's Transmitter Supervisor from 1988-1998.

I blew it because I wasn't paying attention. The word that I had from someone at KCBS at the time (gosh, was it Barry Ellis? I forget) was that KCBS did the 3-way swap in order to get a better signal further north than what they had. Well, what they had was not 106.9 but 98.9.

So, CBS didn't do the swap to get a more central dial position because it was just a move from 98.9 to 97.3. It was a move for a better signal.

Now, wasn't 98.9 on San Bruno Mountain after they left the Russian Hill tower, but prior to Sutro? I think they were. I think they were in the same building as KIOI.

And 98.9 runs 6100 watts, which is probably about what they were running then. 97.3 as you noted was 82,000 watts, a vast improvement over 98.9.