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KEST 1450 San Francisco

A

alok

I read on Bay Area Radio History ,the history of KEST 1450. It looks like this station when it was KSAN and KSOL then KEST, operated from a transmitter site on the Merchandise Mart Building on Market between 9th & 10th.

Does anybody know when they moved the transmitter site and was it from the Merchandise Mart Building to the present China Basin location,what year did this occur?


Al
 
alok said:
I read on Bay Area Radio History ,the history of KEST 1450. It looks like this station when it was KSAN and KSOL then KEST, operated from a transmitter site on the Merchandise Mart Building on Market between 9th & 10th.

Does anybody know when they moved the transmitter site and was it from the Merchandise Mart Building to the present China Basin location,what year did this occur?
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure but it was a two-stop process. I think it was the mid-70s when it moved to the 185 Berry building near the Giants ballpark. It was on the roof there, too. I think it was the mid or late 1980s when it moved to China Basin. The reason for the moves was to improve the signal. Its current location is probably the best it could possibly have given the proximity to the bay and the low altitude.

It's interesting that the Merchandise Mart (aka Furniture Mart, etc) is the new home for Twitter. So, they've gone from radio broadcasting to Internet broadcasting.
 
Could still be the old one, though. Very near Ninth and Market and the old Fox Plaza, where KNBR was until the 70s.
 
I'm pretty sure KEST was still on 185 Berry more recently than the 1980s. I remember seeing it there in the mid-1990s. The most recent modification app in the FCC files is dated 1997, with a license granted in 1999.
 
Scott Fybush said:
I'm pretty sure KEST was still on 185 Berry more recently than the 1980s. I remember seeing it there in the mid-1990s. The most recent modification app in the FCC files is dated 1997, with a license granted in 1999.
Click to expand...

You could well be right. I pretty much lost track of KEST until I happened to see the China Basin tower. Now that I think of it it probably was still at 185 Berry at the time of the quake in 1989. I'm trying to remember if I have any photos of that period. I took a lot of photos in the pre-ballpark era. If I can find them....
 
I worked at KEST from 1990 to 1997. Back in 1990 the station was at 1231 Market Street at the old San Franciscan Hotel in the penthouse suite with three studios. We then moved to China Basin at 185 Berry Street in 1991. The transmitter was across the street at the present day "home plate" at the ballpark which was Pier 47B. Now the studios are on Natoma Street. The transmitter now I believe is south of the ballpark near KSFO.
 
chris319 said:
Ah, PSA's San Franciscan hotel.

Here is the roof of the current Whitcomb Hotel at 1231 Market. I think I see what may be vestiges of two towers on opposite sides of the center line of the roof. Maybe there was a vertical radiator between the two towers?
Click to expand...

The Whitcomb was host first to KFRC in the 1920s and then later KYA from 1930 to 1937. The foundations could be from them. When my mom was a radio actress she used to go to KYA's studio in the basement of the Whitcomb. She said it was the only radio studio where she had to go down instead of up. She thought it peculiar.
 
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