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Fake K call letters

There is a station in Union City, TN that actually had different W call letters, but used KYTN for their name because of being near the Kentucky state line. When the FCC loosened the rules on where K and W call letters could be used, they changed to the actual KYTN call letters.
 
David correct me if I am wrong, didn't your former employer use KGN for WKGN Knoxville? It would have been in the mid 1970's.
Yes, they did. It was when FM started killing that 1 kw on 1340 signal.
 
I always wondered why they didn't pick up an FM signal. They were successful competing with technically better AM signals.
By the mid-70's George Mooney has brought in some additional investors to expand the company and they promptly engaged in a power play and edged him out. In the meantime, FM was growing rapidly and the company did not make any effort to add FMs.

I was GM at Mooney's WUNO in San Juan and as soon as I got the AM turned around (it was losing $40,000 a month in 1970) I wanted to pick up and FM and add it to the operation. For two years I tried to get the funds to buy one and never got approved.
 
I had a quick listen online, it IDs as "Weekend Radio" in a charming French accent. "Le weekend" is a loan word in French. The station is French-speaking, so it'd be "doo-ble-veh", etc.

=> Actually, “dooble-veh-kah-en-deh”. And, in possibly the most pedantic statement ever made on RD, it’s spelled “week-end” in French.

I understand French French, but Quebec French is difficult!
For sure. When I visited Montreal a few years ago, I had a much easier time understanding the taxi drivers, many of whom were from Africa and spoke good standard French, compared to the Quebecois.
 
As long as the call signs contain a "K" somewhere in the call sign, I wouldn't consider branding the station as K - (whatever) as being fake. Many stations in the late '70s early '80s and even today use this type of branding just as did many stations that used "Q" when many broadcasters thought that Quadravox was going to become a thing for FM Radio. Lots of stations hurried to obtain call signs with a "Q" in the call letters so they could brand as "Q-97", Q-94, Q106 etc...

As an alumnus of WSPK Poughkeepsie, NY, I have to point out that the station has gone by “K-104” (maybe now 104.7) for a long time. It may well have been Al or Bob Lessner who came up with that. I don’t remember exactly.
 
By the mid-70's George Mooney has brought in some additional investors to expand the company and they promptly engaged in a power play and edged him out. In the meantime, FM was growing rapidly and the company did not make any effort to add FMs.

I was GM at Mooney's WUNO in San Juan and as soon as I got the AM turned around (it was losing $40,000 a month in 1970) I wanted to pick up and FM and add it to the operation. For two years I tried to get the funds to buy one and never got approved.
I'm sure the station owner should have entrusted you with more "Fidelity".
 
The ones that come to my mind include 2WD (WWDE-FM) in Norfolk, the one that Howard Stern worked for in Detroit, WWWW-FM, known as W4 and today known as WLLZ, and there used to be a KRPN in Salt Lake City, now BYU Radio as KUMT and non-commercial. KRPN had an Oldies format, and branded as WKRP. Their legal ID was W K R P N Salt Lake City.....get it?
 
I'm sure the station owner should have entrusted you with more "Fidelity".
Payo Acosta would never have sold back then. I was trying to do a deal for WORO at less than $500,000.
 
Www.kixx.com links to WXXK, in Lebanon, NH, which IDs on air as "Kixx (kicks) 100.5" rather than to the actual KIXX, in Watertown, SD. The Watertown station apparently has no website of its own, just a home on GoWatertown.com, one of those city-branded web portals.
 
There was an oldies station in Portland Oregon 97.1 KISN-FM but the actual call letter were KKSN-FM. The actual KISN-FM was located in Salt Lake City before they move the call letters to Montana.
 
The ones that come to my mind include 2WD (WWDE-FM) in Norfolk, the one that Howard Stern worked for in Detroit, WWWW-FM, known as W4 and today known as WLLZ, and there used to be a KRPN in Salt Lake City, now BYU Radio as KUMT and non-commercial. KRPN had an Oldies format, and branded as WKRP. Their legal ID was W K R P N Salt Lake City.....get it?
How clever, that SLC Oldies station way of branding with WKRP. The only station with the WKRP call letters is an LPFM in Raleigh, NC. So if those calls are available for AM, or FM maybe, since they are only attached to an LPFM at this point, why would they be not be grabbed up by now? FCC granted call letters cannot be copyrighted.

Also available is KRPN AM, FM, TV. It's perfect calls and branding for an Oldies outlet!
 
my boss in wyoming has a mom and step dad who owned a radio station in laramie, but before that.. step dad did in fact work at WKRPN
 
By the mid-70's George Mooney has brought in some additional investors to expand the company and they promptly engaged in a power play and edged him out. In the meantime, FM was growing rapidly and the company did not make any effort to add FMs.

I was GM at Mooney's WUNO in San Juan and as soon as I got the AM turned around (it was losing $40,000 a month in 1970) I wanted to pick up and FM and add it to the operation. For two years I tried to get the funds to buy one and never got approved.
It's a shame. He had figured out how to take second tier stations (power and coverage wise) and program them to overachieve.
 
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