A few days ago I was in Leavenworth for the first time in 2 decades and a tower with FM bays caught my eye. It was sitting on the same property with KKLO 1410 as I had expected; 98.9 and 1410 were sister stations for many years. I remember when the station now known as 98.9 the Rock was FM99, the local Leavenworth radio station. It was KCLO-FM for awhile and at some point in the 70s became KTRO. It ran a format called beautiful country from a reel to reel automation service. They would also play old radio shows sometimes and broadcasted in Spanish on Sunday mornings. It had local news for the Leavenworth area and the high school sports. In 1982 it went silent for a few weeks a came back on with a CHR format as KZZC, ZZ99; a station still close to my heart. ZZ99 however aimed to be a Kansas City station, not just Leavenworth.
The tower didn't look to be more than about 300 feet tall and had a 12 bay antenna on it with the coax still running up the side. There were also the 3 smaller am1410 towers at the site with a run down looking building where the AM transmitter still resides. The FM tower surprised me because I didn't think it would still be there. 98.9 had moved to the channel 5 tower in the late 80s and has moved again since. I mistakenly reminisced about my memories listening to ZZ99. I tried to find out more about it on the web and it turns out that ZZ99 had a taller tower in Basehor. That means the tower in Leavenworth has likely been out of commission for 25 years or more. If anyone knows anymore about it I would be interested. My guess is the Leavenworth tower was probably a back up for awhile or possibly was the ZZ99 tower in the earlier days of the CHR format. At any rate I enjoyed seeing it as a relic of a once local station now part of a larger cluster. After KZZC it was KCWV (The Wave), then KRVK (The River) and now KQRC.
The tower didn't look to be more than about 300 feet tall and had a 12 bay antenna on it with the coax still running up the side. There were also the 3 smaller am1410 towers at the site with a run down looking building where the AM transmitter still resides. The FM tower surprised me because I didn't think it would still be there. 98.9 had moved to the channel 5 tower in the late 80s and has moved again since. I mistakenly reminisced about my memories listening to ZZ99. I tried to find out more about it on the web and it turns out that ZZ99 had a taller tower in Basehor. That means the tower in Leavenworth has likely been out of commission for 25 years or more. If anyone knows anymore about it I would be interested. My guess is the Leavenworth tower was probably a back up for awhile or possibly was the ZZ99 tower in the earlier days of the CHR format. At any rate I enjoyed seeing it as a relic of a once local station now part of a larger cluster. After KZZC it was KCWV (The Wave), then KRVK (The River) and now KQRC.