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KFRN Changes Tower Sites

Family Stations inc., is in a downward spiral. Donations have dropped at least 60% since the"End of The World" predictions, and has forced station sell-offs. Reduction-in-force saw many exit the company;the biggest layoff #'s since the stations went to Sat feed, and dumped the daily tape reel mailings,and all the bodies needed for that task.
 
KFRN might as well just drop the power down to 250 watts. They should have gone back to a single 208 foot tower -- located near the Marina area near Second St and PCH - Pacific Coast Highway. The former site near PCH and Loynes Drive was a very good site and covered Southern LA county and Orange County.
 
As former Long Beach resident, I well remember when the station was KFOX and broadcasting country music. The studio was on Anaheim St. near Long Beach Blvd., above an auto repair shop (the call letters were over the stairway). The Anaheim building, which later degenerated into a flop house for migrant workers, has since been torn down, along with the iconic radio tower.

It seems Saul Levine has been expanding Mt Wilson Broadcasters. He just bought KNRY in Monterey, CA for a quarter of what it sold for a few years ago. KFRN has all the earmarks of a station in extreme distress so maybe Levine can pick it up cheaply. Given the FCC's recent obsession with saving AM radio maybe buying distressed AM stations is a good move now.
 
This is a bit unexpected to me. I would have thought if FR was going to downsize in SoCal, they would get rid of El Cajon / San Diego's 910 KECR. (sell it to Salem?) KFRN, on a good radio, can be heard out in rural east county San Diego where KECR is covered by Mexicali, and I've heard it in the Mojave desert on Token's online globaltuners receiver. (Of course my pipe dream of them going 50kW using efficient (512mV/m/kW) antennas so they blanket all of Southern CA, parts of central CA, southern NV & western AZ with a good signal is just that - a pipe dream. Too many 1st & 2nd adjacents in SoCal (idk why we protect 3rds - radios with DSP selectivity shouldn't have any prob with those or even 2nds), and there's co-channels in Arroyo Grande, Vegas, Phoenix.)
 
I could be wrong, after all it has been a few decades, but I think as KFOX in the '50's it was one of the LA area's first rock stations, at least thats how I remember it. The signal came in real well in coastal San Diego, good old ocean conductivity. In fact its hard to believe it put a good signal into my neighborhood all the way from Long Beach with only 1 kw.
 
That strong signal for KFOX was from the 2nd trans. site in the wet lands of east Long Beach with a 5/8th wavelength tower. The first site was an old "flat top" on the 2nd story of the studio building on Anaheim stret. Sadly Family radio moved to the current site in a salvage yard in Wilmington. It never performed as well.
 
Thank you, that was interesting. When I was a kid I built a crystal set and 1280 seemed to be the best frequency on it so in childhood naivete I thought KFOX was hugely powerful.
 
You built a better one than me. In the city of San Fernando all I could get on mine where 1260 KGIL and 710 KMPC and I didn't like either one. I wanted rock and roll or country.
 
When I was a kid and lived in the east Long Beach - Lakewood area I got both KFI - 640 and KFOX - 1280. Once I did get KRLA - 1110 as well.
 
Family Rardio just sold four of its station around the country. Harrold Camping always said that he will outlive the network.
 
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