KGO'S Signal !!

[DavidKaye]

Why wasn't it named KABC? Because its local legend as an original General Electric station (K-General(electric)-Oakland) coincided with GE's ownership of WGY in Schenectady and KOA, Denver. The call letters go back to 1924, and a three-letter call at that.

Actually, network-associated callsigns came fairly late in the radio game. WNBC was WEAF until 1946, almost 20 years after the birth of NBC; WABC belonged to CBS, even during the first 3 years of the existence of WABC (1943 to 46; ABC's flagship was WJZ until the sign was changed to WABC in 1953). I must assume that this reluctance to change had much to do with the fear of losing goodwill that had been built up. In those days callsigns were used more than dial positions to get listeners to remember them.

However, the fascinating story is that KGO was, at first, a flagship NBC station until the early 60s. Remember, NBC "Red" and "Blue" split ... with one of the NBC nets becoming ABC ... and the rest is history ...

At one point it was not unusual for the NBC studios at 111 Sutter to be doing shows for the East Coast, the West Coast, and a local non-network program simultaneously. Here's a link to a good description of what was going on: http://www.sfradiomuseum.com/schneider/nbc.shtml

 

[LKellerIII]

"Why wasn't it named KABC? Because its local legend as an original General Electric station (K-General(electric)-Oakland) coincided with GE's ownership of WGY in Schenectady and KOA, Denver. The call letters go back to 1924, and a three-letter call at that."

David Kaye added: "Actually, network-associated callsigns came fairly late in the radio game. WNBC was WEAF until 1946, almost 20 years after the birth of NBC; WABC belonged to CBS, even during the first 3 years of the existence of WABC (1943 to 46; ABC's flagship was WJZ until the sign was changed to WABC in 1953). I must assume that this reluctance to change had much to do with the fear of losing goodwill that had been built up..."

And along those same lines, I remember that Rickradio provided info on KABC a few months ago on another thread - KABC radio and KABC-TV in LA did not receive those call letters until 1954. Prior to that, they were both KECA, for the previous owner, car dealer and radio broadcasting pioneer Earl C. Anthony, who is better known as the original owner of KFI. Apparently, the FCC allowed a single owner to own more than one AM station in the same market in the 1930s and 40s.

 

[paulsecic]

"The only two SF stations that come in very consistently in LA are KGO and KCBS, and that is because both have enormous directional lobes at night towards LA. On the other hand, the first two 50 kw stations in LA, KFI and KNX, are non-directional and push much less power towards SF."

Good information - thanks. Though I don't have as much time on my hands for DXing as I did when I was a kid in LA, I've tried a few times over the years to tune in KFI and KNX from San Francisco. They usually don't come in very well. That explains it.

In the 50's-60's I DXed a lot. I listened to the Dodgers games on KFI. It came in good here. One night I got WCBS for a minute.

 

[oaktree]

Nice posts, guys ... very interesting info on KGO, a great radio station (and its corporation within a corporation ... GE) and some great info on KFI, KABC, KNBR, et al. That's history. Nice we have it to be able to study it, still.

 

[New Castle]

KNBR used to be KPO, which was the NBC Red Station on 680. KGO was the NBC Blue station. The most powerful stations from the West Coast at night are 640 and 1070 from LA and 680 from SF. They both regularly are heard well into the midwest. Nothing else really reaches much past the rockies because of their directional antennas that protect the eastern clears. Here on the East Coast the Western most signals ever received with regularity were KOA Denver and KSL Salt Lake. Unfortunately the FCC has allowed so many junk signals that they both are usually lost in the hash. I did receive KFI one night about 30 years ago in New Jersey when that big Cuban was off the air. That was damned exciting. to hear Chris Stevens and the KFI Whisper jingle package from almost 3,000 miles. I don't think that is possible anymore considering how cluttered the dial has become. It is impressive in the daytime how KFI comes in at the Grand Canyon and KNBR is listenable in Las Vegas. The biggest East Coast score I ever made out West was in 1971 on I-90 coming across the Cascades I heard Long John Nebel from WNBC for about 5 minutes crackling in. That was cool! Here in the east it is impressive how powerful some of the New York stations are. 660, 710, 770 and 880 are heard from the North/South Carolina border all the way to Nova Scotia near the water during the day. On I-95 you can listen to those stations pretty well from North of Portland, ME to south of Richmond, VA on a decent GM or Ford factory car radio. In the midwest WLW comes in from west of Pittsburgh, PA to West of St Louis, MO. Oh well, It's late back here in the East. Go GIANTS and goodnight.

 

[DavidKaye]

The most powerful stations from the West Coast at night are 640 and 1070 from LA and 680 from SF. They both regularly are heard well into the midwest. Nothing else really reaches much past the rockies because of their directional antennas that protect the eastern clears.

You're only talking "power" by what can be heard in the Midwest. 50kw is 50kw. It has to go somwhere, so KGO squeezes it north/south, creating an effective radiated power of near 150kw toward Seattle and Tijuana, but near zero toward Denver. I'd say that due to its signal, KGO reaches more people than KNX, KFI, or KNBR do because it covers major population centers like a local; the others cover a lot of sagebrush.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Re last year's (2007) Tower Site Calendar from Scott Fybush...

You saved it, right? If not, shame--for the KGO site was "Miss February."

 

[chris319]

It was not always thus with reception of KGO in L.A. In the late '90s UCLA put a TIS smack-dab on 810 kHz. It was only supposed to operate during the day, but they would go for long periods during which they would fail to power down at night, making KGO unlistenable. It ran a loop telling listeners to "tune here for emergency information". As with EAS, I doubt they ever broadcast one word of emergency information. Worse, the UCLA campus is in Westwood and their signal got out a little too well, making KGO unlistenable over a rather large, populous area. Hopefully UCLA's TIS transmitter has gone blooey and no one has cared enough to do anything about it. Or maybe they've forgotten they have it.

More recently, the nighttime IBOC splatter from KABC 790 put a whine into KGO's signal which was just annoying enough to make KGO unlistenable. Thank goodness Martin Stabbert made the decisive move to shut off nighttime IBOC for the Citadel stations.

Aside from the above, KGO has a great signal which makes the drive between L.A. and San Diego go much faster, especially when John Rothmann is on the air.

Another great DX catch in L.A. is KFBK 1530 Sacramento. It comes in more reliably than KNBR. And on 1500 you can no longer DX the former KXRX or KSTP due to the city of Beverly Hills having put a TIS on that frequency. Their TIS is distinctive, though. It is the only TIS in the world where you can hear the likes of Bruce Jenner and Mr. Blackwell telling you where public parking is available in Beverly Hills.

 

[chris319]

Checking the web I see UCLA's TIS has been moved to 1630 where they can now operate day and night. Good riddance.