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how many am/fm stations gone to being silent
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fredcantu said:
I thought they had to shut it down when they put 1700 on the air?
Several small-town South Texas radio stations are now silent
KLDS 1260 (Falfurrias)
KIBL 1490 (Beeville) some sites show this station as still being on the air but I've not heard anything on that frequency for a few years now
KIOX 1270 (Bay City)
KGUL 1560 (Port Lavaca) was sold years ago and moved to Houston and is now KGOW (1560 The Game)
fredcantu said:
In the 1940s I was a walking, talking radio nerd and groupie. (I don't think we used those words back then. ;D )
Did KBOR go on the air in 1949 or did they so DA-1 in 1949.
I used to amaze and disgust my school yard friends because I could recite the dial position and the time of programs for every station in the Valley. I would have said that KBOR pre-dated 1949.... but maybe not.
My sky-wave memory (it comes and goes... fading in and out ) is that KBOR carried some of the serials aimed at young listeners. Sky King. Jack Armstrong, All American Boy.
I can remember the day I looked east from our farm and realized there were (six I think) towers on the horizon that had not been there before. So I got on my bicycle and pedaled my way through the gravel and sand til I found the site. I remember a quonset-hut building... but I was too bashful to march right up and ask what they were doing and could I see it. I would soon learn that it was KSOX... was it 1520? The owner was a Mr. Hoffheinz (spelling?) who was mayor of Houston. He took great delight in engaging whoever would humor him with public debates over the proper-ness of tax supported public schools. (He was against them.) All of that would have been sometime around 1948-1950.
KBOR went on the air in 1949.
It was a DA-2 with three towers when I worked there in the 1970s.
I believe it became a DA-1 with two towers in the 80s when the owners moved the site west of Brownsville to reach more of the Valley. But 1kw just isn't going to serve a market that elongated.
It was a DA-2 with three towers when I worked there in the 1970s.
I believe it became a DA-1 with two towers in the 80s when the owners moved the site west of Brownsville to reach more of the Valley. But 1kw just isn't going to serve a market that elongated.
KSOX I believe is doing Fox Sports but has been sold to become the upteenth Spanish religious station in the Valley. IIRC- KSOX was the original KGBT-AM in Harlingen and was shipped off to Raymondville when KGBT (or KGBS as it was known back then) got it's permit for 50,000 watts at 1530.
fredcantu said:
That's it, no relationship to the present day station and the original one on 1530. KSOX was licensed in 1951 and by 1954 McHenry Tichenor's Harbenito Broadcasting had bought it to replace the low-powered 1240. When Tichenor took over the calls were changed to KGBT; it looks like the Raymondville KSOX came along in 1957.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Yes, it was first owned by Roy Hofheinz. He was a lawyer, Harris County judge, two-term Houston mayor and "Father of the Astrodome." Besides all that Hofheinz had been interested in radio as a young boy and got into ownership at an early age.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
It was the new owner of the local newspapers who ranted about paying taxes for the schools and Hofheinz took him to task with a series of programs on KSOX. An article from the Handbook of Texas mentions a debate between Hofheinz and the newspaper man in early 1952, with surprising results: www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fho89
About the stations that have been deleted, add KDSX 950 Denison/Sherman to the list. It was supplanted by KKLF 1700 AM several years ago, which is now licensed to Richardson.
Then there's another station that doesn't exist that probably should be deleted from FCC records, KZEY 690 Tyler. There's no studio, no transmitter and the land where the towers stood was sold at auction to cover back taxes.
Then there's another station that doesn't exist that probably should be deleted from FCC records, KZEY 690 Tyler. There's no studio, no transmitter and the land where the towers stood was sold at auction to cover back taxes.
Thank you all for history lesson.
I left The Valley in 1952. Came back and worked in a cotton gin in 1954, 1955. Have not had opportunity or reason to return since. Sometime between 1946 and 1950 we as a family went to KRGV and sat in the studio as Moulton "Ty" Cobb did his evening commentary program. I think this was before they changed frequency and built the multi-tower site north of Mercedes.
There were two little white clapboard frame buildings at the foot of the tower at the west edge of Weslaco. The building facing south was apparently the office and they pointed us around the corner to the building facing east which was the studio. I remember this floor-model console speaker made of finished wood much like home radio consoles of the day. Oh, did it have a booming sound as it played the Sousa march that was his theme music. It made am impression on me. I don't know that I ever had a thought from that event: "That's what I want to do!" That came 10 years later.
But here is the mystery that haunts me. I don't know how many times as a child we drove past that tower at the west edge of Weslaco, but the longer I try to pull from those memories, the more I wonder about that tower. I don't remember it as a typical, traditional tower of the day. I remember it looking a bit like the mast on a sailboat with a network of maybe four wires forming a diamond shape as they pass over a "spacer" about midpoint on the tower. Then again... maybe I ate something last night that results in scrambled dreams. ;D
Anyone around who can tell me about that tower? Maybe a picture I could print and put in my scrapbook.
I left The Valley in 1952. Came back and worked in a cotton gin in 1954, 1955. Have not had opportunity or reason to return since. Sometime between 1946 and 1950 we as a family went to KRGV and sat in the studio as Moulton "Ty" Cobb did his evening commentary program. I think this was before they changed frequency and built the multi-tower site north of Mercedes.
There were two little white clapboard frame buildings at the foot of the tower at the west edge of Weslaco. The building facing south was apparently the office and they pointed us around the corner to the building facing east which was the studio. I remember this floor-model console speaker made of finished wood much like home radio consoles of the day. Oh, did it have a booming sound as it played the Sousa march that was his theme music. It made am impression on me. I don't know that I ever had a thought from that event: "That's what I want to do!" That came 10 years later.
But here is the mystery that haunts me. I don't know how many times as a child we drove past that tower at the west edge of Weslaco, but the longer I try to pull from those memories, the more I wonder about that tower. I don't remember it as a typical, traditional tower of the day. I remember it looking a bit like the mast on a sailboat with a network of maybe four wires forming a diamond shape as they pass over a "spacer" about midpoint on the tower. Then again... maybe I ate something last night that results in scrambled dreams. ;D
Anyone around who can tell me about that tower? Maybe a picture I could print and put in my scrapbook.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Long wire antennas were used in the early days of radio. I recall the owner of KBOR talking about a wire antenna on Brownsville's first radio station KWWG (Kome to the World's Winter Garden.) The antenna was on top of the El Jardin Hotel. He mentioned it shared time with a station in Harlingen, perhaps the predecessor of KRGV-AM before it moved to Weslaco.
No, I gave a poor explanation of what it looked like. It apparently functioned as a typical, traditional vertical radiator some most A.M. stations. It just sketched into my memory something a little different than the hundreds and thousands of towers I have seen.
I don't remember whether it was guyed or free standing. I just remember it being very, very slim... to the point I wonder if it was a typical steel tower, or was it a wooden pole "much like the mast of a sail boat". When someone comes up with a picture, I may be standing here all embarrassed how much it just looked like any other radio tower of the era.
If it was a "pole" then it would have been made functional by wires running from top to bottom with a little spacer at the midpoint... no more than a foot from the pole in the center. We're talking 60 years ago. It's a fuzzy black-and-white foto in my mind.... (from Fox processing in San Antonio with the little bric-a-brac border around the edge? How many of you have those in your family collection? )
I don't remember whether it was guyed or free standing. I just remember it being very, very slim... to the point I wonder if it was a typical steel tower, or was it a wooden pole "much like the mast of a sail boat". When someone comes up with a picture, I may be standing here all embarrassed how much it just looked like any other radio tower of the era.
If it was a "pole" then it would have been made functional by wires running from top to bottom with a little spacer at the midpoint... no more than a foot from the pole in the center. We're talking 60 years ago. It's a fuzzy black-and-white foto in my mind.... (from Fox processing in San Antonio with the little bric-a-brac border around the edge? How many of you have those in your family collection? )
mmnassour said:
Oh, no. Nothing like a Blaw-Knox (ala WSM also). KRGV back then I think was 250 watts on either 1230 or 1240 and I don't think the stick was over 150' tall. (Of course I can't look at a tower today and tell you how tall it is, how would a 8 or 9 year old kid size up a tower. I think the structure itself was quite slim.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
There were a lot of "towers" built post-war that wre essentially big guyed flagpoles. They looked like pipe sections, some with smaller diameters towards the top. The "outriggers" were installed for one of two reasons. First was to use the tower as a shunt fed unipole, often used where there is a bad ground or to allow the tower to not have a base insulator. Second is to simply broaden the bandwidth, making the station sound better and tune easier on the sidebands.
http://www.davidgleason.com/Argentina-Radio-10-Transmitter.htm shows the bottom of a tower rigged this way for bandwidth.
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