KFMB's 70th Anniversary

[Big 121]

Does anybody remember Dennis Holt? Worked at KECR FM changing tapes and announcing, later to KFMB doing weekends and fill-ins. A young and
playful sounding guy, he later took ill and passed on.

 

[jonbruce]

Yes, I remember Dennis Holt. I worked with him briefly when he did weekends at KFXM 590 San Bernardino in the late 196o's.

 

[Jim Culligan]

I remember a Dennis Holt who worked at either KDON radio or KERR radio in Salinas during the mid to late 1960's. If it's the same Dennis Holt sorry to hear of his passing.

 

[Lopaka]

In addition to 1420, 1450 and 540 before 760, I think KFMB had a brief stint on 550. Not many stations have had more frequencies than call letters. A trivia contest might be to find the station that has had the most frequencies, KFMB would be a good entrant.

 

[600kogo]

KFBC/KGB had more but I will have to check the paperwork, but that was in the days when the Commerce Commission was playing musical frequencies

started off at 833.3 kc, 1210, 1330, 1360, and I remember about 2 or three other freq changes. I just looked at KLSD's wikipedia site that I thought I had written, but I guess not because it is completely inacurate. I will have to break out my paperwork in a few weeks and fix it.

 

[davideduardo]

In addition to 1420, 1450 and 540 before 760, I think KFMB had a brief stint on 550. Not many stations have had more frequencies than call letters. A trivia contest might be to find the station that has had the most frequencies, KFMB would be a good entrant.

Because KFMB was not on the air prior to 1940, it missed the 1927 (and 1928 implementation reallocation) altogether.

The 1927 changes were quite significant, and then the 1941 NARBA moved just about every station above 750 AM to a new channel (1450 to 1420, for example). So just about every early station went through at least two changes.

http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive Radex/Radex 24 28 10.pdf
shows the old and new allocations in 1928; the new channels became effective November 10 of '28.

http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive BC-YB/1941/NARBA-BC-YB-1941.pdf has the Broadcasting Yearbook's excellent lists of pre and post NARBA frequencies.

And Radex has a chart showing the frequency conversion for each channel at
http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive Radex/Radex 136 40 03-04.pdf

There were some busy engineers during those last days of March, 1941! Imagine all the new crystals, oscillator tuning, final stage tuning, interstage coupling and antenna tuning unit adjustments that had to be made all at once. And all the new letterheads, business cards, mike flags and station vehicles that had to be changed.

 

[600kogo]

Well the point is that KGB had the same or more freq changes than KFMB.

KOGO changed 3 times in the history of that station (the station being KFVW/KFSD/KOGO/KLZZ/KKLQ/KOGO) 1220, 620, 600. That one we researched to a tee.

The KGB stuff hopefully I will find in the next few weeks when I clean out my storage unit.

It is my understanding that KFMB moved from 1450 to 540 for a power boost and of course for the lower freq, not due to regulations. The 1420 to 1450 and 540 to 760 were forced on them (of course the 760 move has been very good for KFMB)

 

[Lopaka]

This is such a basic question I am embarassed to be asking it, but why did everything broadcast on 833kc to begin with?

 

[600kogo]

Not quite everything was on 833.3 but it was because radio was experimental. And it was measured in meters on the radios of the time from 0-100. I dont remember what meters 833.3 was at but I do remember listening to my Atwater Kent model 36 on 1360 and it was ending up close to 90 meters on the scale. On the radios themselves it was not called kilocycles or kilohertz. There was only the broadcast band, and most "broadcasters" were home experimenters that would sign on only for a couple of hours just like A.K. Azbill of KFBC/KGB. The station was only on as I recall an hour or two a week. There may have been alot of call letters but most were all sharing time with each other!

When you read the patent info on the early 20's radios it talks about radio being experimental. Once the Commerce Commission figured something better out each station got a frequency, but by then only one station was still left in San Diego KFBC (to become KGB in 1928).

 

[radio-darn]

Not quite everything was on 833.3 but it was because radio was experimental.

That was the old long-wave band covering 160 to 340 kiloHertz.

 

[600kogo]

That makes zero sense 160-340 kilohertz is not the broadcast band! or near it !

 

[radio-darn]

That makes zero sense 160-340 kilohertz is not the broadcast band! or near it !

Oops, I read it as 833.3 meters...

In 1921 only two frequencies were assigned for broadcasting: 833 KHz (360 meters) and 619 KHz (485 meters).

FYI: here are actually three AM broadcasting bands. The one we used in the USA is the mediumwave band. In some parts of the world the longwave band between 148.5 and 283.5 kHz is used for AM broadcasting, and of course, there's the shortwave band. Longwave apparently was only used for US broadcasting before 1920 when such stations were experimental and unlicensed.

 

[davideduardo]

FYI: here are actually three AM broadcasting bands. The one we used in the USA is the mediumwave band. In some parts of the world the longwave band between 148.5 and 283.5 kHz is used for AM broadcasting, and of course, there's the shortwave band.

It should be explained that there is not a shortwave band, but there are a number of shortwave bands... starting with the tropic(al) bands of 120, 90, 75 and 60 meters and international bands of 49, 41, 31, 25, 22, 19, 16, 13 and 11 meters. Some of these bands, like the tropical bands, are not used in the US. Others are shared with some parts of ham bands, and still others like 11 may be the DRM bands.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Getting back on topic, KFMB these days is far from the legacy station it was.

@Chris - Are you sure that Rick Roberts is now broadcasting out of San Diego? I was listening to his show on Friday and it was ROCKY. Lots of overlong musicbeds, missed news cues, etc.

 

[600kogo]

David the early days that I am refering to were from about 1919-1927. There were no shortwave bands on a commercially available receiver for the home there was simply broadcast. Most of them had multiple tuning stages (especially since they wre tuned radio frequency receivers not superhetrodyne). But they could only tune in the one band! And shortwave or longwave of anysort at that point was either amateur or federal. And the amateur/ham did not come about until the mid 20's. In 1922 when KFBC was licensed most of the amateurs were playing on the broadcast band. Go take a look at the Atwater kents, Zenith's. RCA's, Majestic's, Crosley's, Philco's, Jackson Bell's, Scott's, and other brands from 1919-1927 and see how many bands there were. Some of the first receivers to be able to change bands were the early Scott Allwave's (not the Allwave 23's), and to do so you had to change the coils, which you got a box of coils. Radios with shortwave recevers did not come on the scene until after late 1928.

 

[600kogo]

To respond to the comment that KFMB is not the legacy station that it was?? None of the great stations across the country are anything close to what they formerly were, whether programming wise, rating wise, or sales wise!! It's not just a problem for KFMB, but for what they are they are not bad. Of course in San Diego KOGO is still king, which they took from KSDO.

Heres a list of stations that once were something and now are dogs!

KCBQ
KDEO
KSDO
KSON-AM
KOWN/KFSD
KPRZ
XETRA-AM

All of these stations were WAYYY better programmed and cared about at one point but their owners just dont care! All of them have less than a .7 share. KFMB at least 12 + has a 2.2

 

[davideduardo]

David the early days that I am refering to were from about 1919-1927. There were no shortwave bands on a commercially available receiver for the home there was simply broadcast. Most of them had multiple tuning stages (especially since they wre tuned radio frequency receivers not superhetrodyne). But they could only tune in the one band! And shortwave or longwave of anysort at that point was either amateur or federal. And the amateur/ham did not come about until the mid 20's. In 1922 when KFBC was licensed most of the amateurs were playing on the broadcast band. Go take a look at the Atwater kents, Zenith's. RCA's, Majestic's, Crosley's, Philco's, Jackson Bell's, Scott's, and other brands from 1919-1927 and see how many bands there were. Some of the first receivers to be able to change bands were the early Scott Allwave's (not the Allwave 23's), and to do so you had to change the coils, which you got a box of coils. Radios with shortwave recevers did not come on the scene until after late 1928.

I'm amply aware of the state of radio in the early 20's.

However, "radio-darn" spoke of long wave and shortwave in the present tense, and I just wanted to clarify that SW is not a single band but a bunch of 'em. SW is not very well known by most people under 50 or so, and I thought an explanation was appropriate.

I'd rather work on a Vanguard I than work on some of the early radios!

 

[SDRadio]

@Chris - Are you sure that Rick Roberts is now broadcasting out of San Diego? I was listening to his show on Friday and it was ROCKY. Lots of overlong musicbeds, missed news cues, etc.

Confirmed. He is in dah building on Engineer Road. He has about one year left on his contract.

 

[Garrett]

To respond to the comment that KFMB is not the legacy station that it was?? None of the great stations across the country are anything close to what they formerly were, whether programming wise, rating wise, or sales wise!! It's not just a problem for KFMB, but for what they are they are not bad. Of course in San Diego KOGO is still king, which they took from KSDO.

Heres a list of stations that once were something and now are dogs!

KCBQ
KDEO
KSDO
KSON-AM
KOWN/KFSD
KPRZ
XETRA-AM

All of these stations were WAYYY better programmed and cared about at one point but their owners just dont care! All of them have less than a .7 share. KFMB at least 12 + has a 2.2

And then there's KOGO, which is not only legacy, it came back from the dead!

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

"I'd rather work on a Vanguard I than work on some of the early radios!" LOL! I've heard stories about those darn Vangard units. That's the one that's a roll-around compact 1kw unit with a pl259, isn't it?