KGIL on Columbo

[Hot Hits]

Llew: KHJ hired Hull for mornings in the fall of 1985. He was there just a few weeks before they fired everyone and automated as KRTH-AM on February 1, 1986.

Of course as we know Hull stayed on to do mornings at Smokin' Oldies. I filled in mid days for a week and Hull pulled every single element I needed for my entire shift, and with 2 minute songs that's a lot of Carts & Spots, what a great man. I did the same thing for Johnny Darrin at KBLA a few years later, made two giant piles of Carts for his shift and they fell on him. Also KRTH really wasn't Automated, why I was spinning those 8 Tomcats at 15 IPS, probably the only broadcast company to use those terrible Cart machines at double speed?

 

[michael hagerty]

Of course as we know Hull stayed on to do mornings at Smokin' Oldies. I filled in mid days for a week and Hull pulled every single element I needed for my entire shift, and with 2 minute songs that's a lot of Carts & Spots, what a great man. I did the same thing for Johnny Darrin at KBLA a few years later, made two giant piles of Carts for his shift and they fell on him. Also KRTH really wasn't Automated, why I was spinning those 8 Tomcats at 15 IPS, probably the only broadcast company to use those terrible Cart machines at double speed?

Hot Hits: That's odd. In his autobiography, Hull says he was one of the 23 employees who got blown out when the format changed on February 1, 1986.

https://books.google.com/books?id=S...K#v=onepage&q=dave hull smokin oldies&f=false

Llew: "Car Radio" was the format from sometime in 1984 until January 31, 1986. It was horrendous. Two burned-to-a-crisp recurrents back to back, jock back-announce, a traffic tease, a spot break, the traffic and the phrase "Next traffic in ten minutes. Now another great car tune from Car Radio 93---KHJ." And then the cycle repeats. 24-7, for a year and a half.

RKO thought a personality morning show might make a difference, so they hired Dave Hull in the fall of '85. He got maybe 13 weeks before they pulled the plug on the whole thing.

KRTH-AM did not simulcast the FM. It was a "first decade of rock and roll" format called "Smokin' Oldies". Sank without a trace, but they limped along with it until the sale to Lieberman and the flip to Espanol three and a half years later.

 

[Hot Hits]

I just typed a full reply to you Michael and then got a re direct Virus warning and lost it all but no, Hull was doing mornings at KHJ in 1985 according to Southern California Radio History who also claim AM 930 then switched to Spanish in 1986, Kevin Gershon claimed to be there the moment it happened in 1986. From Wikipedia Hull is listed as working at KHJ from 1985 to 1987 and he might have been "to be" fired but it never happened. In fact RKO kept all the people listed below aside from Johnny Yant, aka Big John Carter. Brother John was heard 20 hours a day after Dave's morning show from 6 to 10 am, really!

KHJ (1986)

(Courtesy: Bill Dulmage)

6-10 a.m. - DAVE HULL

10 a.m.-2 p.m. - JOHNNY YANT

2-6 p.m. - MICHAEL MOORE

6-10 p.m. - JAY GARDINER

10 p.m.-2 a.m. - JAY COFFEY

(NOTE: KHJ switched to Spanish format January 31, 1986)

 

[michael hagerty]

Hot Hits: You're right and Dave is wrong about his own career! I had to dig, but the April 11, 1986 issue of R&R has word that Dave abruptly quit KRTH-AM just before his April 4, 1986 show.

 

[Hot Hits]

Hot Hits: You're right and Dave is wrong about his own career! I had to dig, but the April 11, 1986 issue of R&R has word that Dave abruptly quit KRTH-AM just before his April 4, 1986 show.

Thank you buddy, you're worth getting a redirect Trojan warning anytime!

 

[rba13]

 

[Yabadabado1]

Must be the Sturgeon version 1.0

 

[michael hagerty]

Must be the Sturgeon version 1.0

Yep. And here's 2.0....KTHT, Houston (1948)

By the late 1950s, KMPC in Los Angeles had one:

And in the 1970s, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana did too:

The first of the GMC motorhomes of the Sturgeon's vintage I can remember was (I think) KDKA in Pittsburgh. The difference with the KFRC studio was that it was a fully redundant studio...no compromises. You could do all your programming from in the Sturgeon....and most of the mobile studios to that point relied on either phone lines or portable transmitters. The KFRC unit was self-contained.

 

[mike847]

michaelhagerty....I gotta go back to where you said: "KTVK-TV, Reno (1986-2000)" Were you actually in Reno, or were you working at KTVK in Phoenix? Confused Phoenicians want to know.

 

[michael hagerty]

michaelhagerty....I gotta go back to where you said: "KTVK-TV, Reno (1986-2000)" Were you actually in Reno, or were you working at KTVK in Phoenix? Confused Phoenicians want to know.

Mike847: Both. At different times. When I said KTVK, I meant Phoenix, but wrote Reno:

KTVN-TV, Reno (1981-84): A menagerie, and a fairly mangy one at that: Two 1977 Dodge Aspen station wagons that you could tell apart only by the color of their interiors (one red, one blue), that spent most of their time on the back of tow trucks. A 1979 Subaru wagon that sounded like a sewing machine was under the hood, but the all-wheel drive was what we needed. A 1980 Eagle station wagon (essentially an AMC Hornet wagon jacked up to ride high with all-wheel drive)---a better car than I expected it to be. And a 1983 Ford Escort wagon, which was very nearly as slow and noisy as the '79 Subaru.

KTNV-TV, Las Vegas (1984-86): A fleet of six pale yellow 1983 Plymouth Reliant K Cars with tan interiors. The air conditioning worked. That's about the only good thing I can say about those.

KTVK-TV, Reno (1986-2000): Started out like KTVN, with a batch of stuff, a couple of '84 Chevy Celebrity sedans (again, one with a red interior, one with blue), a couple of '83 Chevy Celebrity wagons (same deal with the interiors), three '86 Ford Aerostar vans, and four '83 Chevy S-10 Blazers, which were horrendous.
We replaced the S-10s and the Aerostars with Ford Bronco IIs around 1988 and then, in '92, shifted over to a fleet of Ford Explorers, trading out a third of the fleet each year.


Looks like I had Reno on the brain, because I was about to compare KTVK's fleet with KTVN's.

You're confused? I spent 19 years only working for stations that only had four letters of the alphabet used anywhere in their call letters (KTVN, KTNV, KTVK). Thankfully, in the last 17 years, I've managed to pick up an "A", an "R", a "Z", an "F" and a "B". All the vowels came early in the career (I, Y, O, U).