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A QUESTION FOR DALLAS RADIO HISTORIANS

Nope. No goodies. I'm sure I would have smoked them! <not really> I do recall when KPLX & KLIF left Ryan Plaza I was allowed to take some childrens building block/letters that said K-P-L-X. They were used in a commercial in the 80's. I have them sitting above the console in my home studio and treasure them still today.

I do recall me & Jack Monroe finding a lighter and some zig-zag's on top of a JBL speaker in one of the control rooms when we left Arlington. No telling who they belonged to, but I have my suspicions. :)

Underneath the KLIF console in Arlington were the names of many of the folks theat worked there then. Mike Selden, Craig Eaton, Don Harris, Jim Baker (pause) Tom Dooley, Jon Rivers, Jason Walker, Art Snow, Mike Terry, Danny McDuff. I wish I had that old furniture just to recall who all cracked a mic there. That is a tradition I have kept at every station I ever worked for. (except for the places where they got to me before I got to the furniture.)
 
Hello all! I found this web site while searching for info about what was going on with KZPS format, and also HD radio in general. I grew up about 6 blocks from KBOX. My parents moved to Lake Highlands in 1954 when I was 3. I listened to KBOX in the '50s and '60s until they changed format in '67 (which was about the time KNUS-FM came on the air).

KBOX did indeed run reverb on all their audio in the late '50s- early '60s. I have seen Mike Shannon's Tribute to KBOX and KGKO, and the story about it is there. They discontinued the reverb in the early '60s. I remember rummaging through KBOX's trash cans and hauling home as many 45s as the baskets on my bicycle could hold! I have an old KBOX air check tape with reverb on all the audio.

Anyway my short career in radio was about 6 months in 1970-'71. I did a search but no one has ever mentioned KFAD before so I will! 94.9 KFAD-FM Cleburne-Arlington, then in Feb '71 it became "Arlington-Cleburne" for a while during a transition phase. Most of my time there, I worked out of an old house in Cleburne that was the studio which was in the front room. I would go down there on Monday night and stay in the house until Friday morning when I would come back to Dallas. Then go back on Saturday night to do my two weekend shifts. Quite an arrangement! Some of the equipment there was hand made by George Marti like the old board that I have a picture of. The big deal at the time was we were all trying to talk the the station owner Jim Gordon into going stereo! He didn't see any need to do that! Two of the guys I worked with are still on the air today one here locally and the other in Memphis.

Hope I didn't go too far off track reminiscing!
 
Megapsycle said:
Hello all! I found this web site while searching for info about what was going on with KZPS format, and also HD radio in general. I grew up about 6 blocks from KBOX. My parents moved to Lake Highlands in 1954 when I was 3. I listened to KBOX in the '50s and '60s until they changed format in '67 (which was about the time KNUS-FM came on the air).

KBOX did indeed run reverb on all their audio in the late '50s- early '60s. I have seen Mike Shannon's Tribute to KBOX and KGKO, and the story about it is there. They discontinued the reverb in the early '60s. I remember rummaging through KBOX's trash cans and hauling home as many 45s as the baskets on my bicycle could hold! I have an old KBOX air check tape with reverb on all the audio.

Anyway my short career in radio was about 6 months in 1970-'71. I did a search but no one has ever mentioned KFAD before so I will! 94.9 KFAD-FM Cleburne-Arlington, then in Feb '71 it became "Arlington-Cleburne" for a while during a transition phase. Most of my time there, I worked out of an old house in Cleburne that was the studio which was in the front room. I would go down there on Monday night and stay in the house until Friday morning when I would come back to Dallas. Then go back on Saturday night to do my two weekend shifts. Quite an arrangement! Some of the equipment there was hand made by George Marti like the old board that I have a picture of. The big deal at the time was we were all trying to talk the the station owner Jim Gordon into going stereo! He didn't see any need to do that! Two of the guys I worked with are still on the air today one here locally and the other in Memphis.

Hope I didn't go too far off track reminiscing!
Click to expand...

I think KFAD was originally KCLE-FM which was George Marti's station. That expalins all the Marti built equipment. As I recall Jon Dillon was PD for a while begore he went to KAFM. I once applied for a job there, but it was a 60+ mile drive from my house, which was hard to justify for a $2.00 per hour night gig. Besides, I really sucked on radio...
 
SOMEONE REMEMBERS KFAD!!! Phil Cook was the PD when I was there, he's the one that hired me. Jon was a DJ doing 6am to noon shift. I would hand it off to him from Cleburne to Arlington at 6 every morning. I did midnight to 6 Tues through Fri, Sat night/Sun morning midnight to 6, go take a nap, then do 2pm to 7 on Sunday afternoon with the evangelical church remotes in between pretty much whatever I wanted to play. KCLE-FM was indeed the same station and was a jazz station in the '60s. I got paid the same.. $2 an hour! Round trip was almost 70 miles, thus the reason I stayed in the house in Cleburne during the week. Even buying gas at the Sello station for 22.9¢ a gallon was killing me!
 
Correction "The drive one way was almost 70 miles, thus the reason I stayed in the house in Cleburne during the week."

The "Edit" feature times out fast on this board!
 
Megapsycle said:
Two of the guys I worked with are still on the air today one here locally and the other in Memphis.
Click to expand...

I've got a pretty good idea who you are, too, but I'll keep it to myself. Thanks for bringing up the topic! The "other" guy in Memphis would be Tim Spencer, who later worked at KFWD (forerunner of Q102), and a number of other D/FW stations. He's been with Clear Channel's WEGR for years.

The history of 94.9 goes back a long way, and KFAD is probably one of the most interesting things ever to have been on it. I can recall some of the details from memory, except for the really early things: KCLE-FM started in 1949 in Cleburne on 94.3; in 1957 they switched to 94.9 and increased power to 6,400 watts.

The KFAD call letters appeared in 1969, following an increase to full power from a tower near Lillian. The Arlington studios were at 2216 South Cooper; the Cleburne studios were shut down in 1970. In 1972 the station became KAMC, with an odd mix of pop and country during the day but still airing "progressive rock" music at night. By the way, KAMC finally added stereo in 1973, but it wasn't easy. They had problems getting a good STL path to the transmitter and it took a lot of tweaking to get it right.

A switch to progressive ("Texas") country came along a couple of years later, but it soon had a stronger competitor on 92.5, KAFM. In 1976 when the station was sold to evangelist Jimmy Swaggart. And of course, after many formats, owners and call letter switches, today's 94.9 is Salem's "Safe For the Whole Family" KLTY. A checkered past and a fascinating history for the frequency, indeed.
 
jd said:
The KFAD call letters appeared in 1969, following an increase to full power from a tower near Lillian. The Arlington studios were at 2216 South Cooper; the Cleburne studios were shut down in 1970. In 1972 the station became KAMC, with an odd mix of pop and country during the day but still airing "progressive rock" music at night. By the way, KAMC finally added stereo in 1973, but it wasn't easy. They had problems getting a good STL path to the transmitter and it took a lot of tweaking to get it right.
Click to expand...

I'd completely forgotten about the KAMC calls. I guess it's true. If you remember the 70's, you probably weren't there. I also appreciate the info on Tim Spencer. I'd wondered where he was.
 
Holstead said:
Didn't Dick Osburn own that station around that time?
Click to expand...

Yes, he did. This was just before he and Rusty Reynolds teamed up to put on KYKX Longview.
 
Of all the different formats and call letters 94.9 has racked up over the years, my favorites were KHYI and KEWS. I'm guessing the studio's location remaind the same, following the original move to Arlington? Is it still presently at the same location?

R
 
jd said:
the Cleburne studios were shut down in 1970.
Click to expand...
Is that Jon? Ed here! Your timing is close.... I worked in the Cleburne location through Jan '71. It was about the 1st of Feb everything went to Arlington. Anyway.. good bit of history we have resurrected here!
 
Nope wrong "jd"! Thanks for the PM

And thanks radiowise for that link! I think Larry and I lived in nearly parallel universes! Except in my case lots of hot sticky summers bumming around on our bicycles and bothering the engineers and DJs at KBOX. Then, you could go around the back of the studio building knock on the glass window where the on-air studio was and usually the DJ would come over and chat for a minute or take a request.
 
This is strictly andecdotal ... but I was a kid listening to KLIF in the late '60s. And I have no memory at all of hearing certain very big hits that may have been a little risque for the time. For example, I never heard "Honky Tonk Women" until I bought the Stones' greatest hits album that came out later that year. I can't remember hearing "All You Need Is Love" at the time either, nor any of the "Sgt. Pepper" tracks, although I can't imagine why, unless it was the controversy over the Beatles and LSD, very big at the time.
 
Horatio said:
This is strictly andecdotal ... but I was a kid listening to KLIF in the late '60s.....I can't remember hearing "All You Need Is Love" at the time either, nor any of the "Sgt. Pepper" tracks, although I can't imagine why, unless it was the controversy over the Beatles and LSD, very big at the time.
Click to expand...

Looking at my KLIF "Forty Star Survey" from March 11, 1967 #3 is the Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane" from the Magical Mystery Tour LP.

Anyone remember when KVIL was a "Hal Tunis" Top 40 station? And the "Psychedelic Stereo Freak Scene" KVIL used to do every night? And all their DJs were named "Dave"? Even Frank "Li'l David" Jolley was there for a while after KBOX!
 
Megapsycle said:
Anyone remember when KVIL was a "Hal Tunis" Top 40 station? And the "Psychedelic Stereo Freak Scene" KVIL used to do every night? And all their DJs were named "Dave"? Even Frank "Li'l David" Jolley was there for a while after KBOX!
Click to expand...

Yep, as Frank Jolley would say, "It's psychedelic...." At the time. I doubt that very many people in Dallas knew what the word meant. Most kids I knew thought it was another term for "cool..."
 
radiowise said:
There's a nice little piece on Dallas-Fort Worth radio, with KLIF, KFJZ and KBOX included, at http://www.radiodailynews.com/klifessay.htm that was written by Larry Shannon.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that link. It echos the passion that KLIF inspired in all who heard it. Fortunately, I have dozens of hours of tape from its "golden era". Even from 330 miles away, even though the signal was weak, it was definitely still "the Mighty 1190". The DX techniques I developed all those years ago to receive KLIF with box loop antennas live on - in just about every wireless mouse and keyboard on the market today. I personally laid out the PC boards for most of the Chinese companies that make the things.
 
What a great job,,I remember that day,,as I was a second grader at West Elementary in Snyder, Tx. We were ALL sent home early that day & I knew something really bad had just happened in Dallas, but the teachers wouldnt tell us just yet.

Thank You, the video really hit home with the audio, what It must have been like that day! Now that I liuve here, its brings it home,,A Day In History!
 
You guys make me feel way toooo old. Dick Osborne was Gm of KXOL-AM and FM. Rusty Reynolds was Sales manager of KXOL-FM (later KCWM). Mike Seldon was PM drive on KXOL and making headway against KFJZ at the time. (that's when D-FW was rated as seperate markets) The only reason KXOL-FM was on the air was to provide Muzak on the sub-carrier. We actually did beat KBUY-AM (based in Seminary South Shopping center at the time) but no one cared. Just don't let those Muzak tapes run out.

[EDIT] Mike and the good looking secretary got in his white Corvette and sped off just minutes before his show.

In only a few days Mike was on KLIF.

[EDIT-vulgar]

One of my favorite radio events and stories.
 
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