Knozall -
I have a Summer 1976 aircheck of K106 (KFRC-FM) during their brief automated format of just the Top 20. The FM station tracked record sales and requests at 610-KFRC and produced a new Top 20 every day. In addition to the daily Top 20, the station would air the Top 5 from a selected day in the past, and then air 2 new songs and battle them against each other by giving phone numbers for listeners to vote. And then, the Top 20 all over again. So, in essence, on any given day they rotated just 27 songs! It was well produced though, and you'll hear lots of familiar KFRC voices: Dave Sholin, Michael Spears, John Mack Flanagan, Marvelous Mark McKay and Shana to name a few.
There are 2 scoped airchecks totaling about 15 minutes. The reception was variable, and only fair to poor, as I recorded the station from the Almaden Valley in south San Jose.
Send your email address to
[email protected] and I'll send to you, or if you prefer, I'll post to one of the upload services, like savefile.com
Here's a brief history of the 106.1 frequency, from wikipedia:
The 106.1 FM frequency was originally home to KGO-FM, sister station of KGO. The FM station was originally licensed at 96.9 FM in 1946. KGO-FM moved to 106.1 FM on November 3, 1947, with facilities at a former General Electric plant on East 12th Street in Oakland. On January 14, 1955, KGO-FM moved from 106.1 to 103.7.
RKO General, owner of Top 40 powerhouse KFRC, eventually purchased the station and on November 30, 1960 it became KFRC-FM. The station's call letters changed to KFMS in November 1968, then KKEE in October 1972. In September 1973, the KFRC-FM call letters were reinstated, and the station began a Bill Drake-programmed "nostalgia rock" format. playing oldies and soft rock as "K106". On July 1, 1977, after Century Broadcasting purchased the FM station, K106 was rebranded KMEL, playing Album-Oriented Rock ("AOR"). Its mascot was a camel (hence the call letters) and was known on-air as "Kamel 106".
