KRVT

[Bryan Pennington]

Gene Savage, Joe Riddle and Stan. Great job guys! (Excuse me if there are others I didn't mention. These are the only ones I've heard.)

What a great sounding, fun radio station.

I ust jwish they would stream on the internet.

Bryan

 

[billyg]

I'm able to pick KRVT up here in Lawton at night, they skip down here fairly well with 1K. But at night they are running Dial Global's "Kool Gold" satellite format, I wish they had a live and local night jock on.

 

[Bryan Pennington]

I'm able to pick KRVT up here in Lawton at night, they skip down here fairly well with 1K. But at night they are running Dial Global's "Kool Gold" satellite format, I wish they had a live and local night jock on.

I agree.

Or if the budget doesn't allow for live and local 24/7 I'd like to see them at least do local voicetracking instead of part satellite/part local. It seems like there would be enough former radio people around that do other things as their full time gig to fill up the day fairly affordably. If they went with one of the systems where tracking can be performed off site and uploaded they'd have an even broader base of talent to work with.

Bryan

 

[Sgeirk]

One's free, the other costs money.

 

[billyg]

I'm able to pick KRVT up here in Lawton at night, they skip down here fairly well with 1K. But at night they are running Dial Global's "Kool Gold" satellite format, I wish they had a live and local night jock on.

I agree.

Or if the budget doesn't allow for live and local 24/7 I'd like to see them at least do local voicetracking instead of part satellite/part local. It seems like there would be enough former radio people around that do other things as their full time gig to fill up the day fairly affordably. If they went with one of the systems where tracking can be performed off site and uploaded they'd have an even broader base of talent to work with.

Bryan

They should run it like WDJO in Cincy http://www.oldies1160.com/ - the station is voicetracked most of the time (using a few out of town jocks) but it's so well done you'd think it was live 24/7.

 

[Bob Oshea]

I'm able to pick KRVT up here in Lawton at night, they skip down here fairly well with 1K. But at night they are running Dial Global's "Kool Gold" satellite format, I wish they had a live and local night jock on.

Hey BillyG-
I worked in Lawton for a year from August of '73 to about July of '74 as memory serves. I always thought Lawton was a great radio market despite the size. Terrific town! I partcularly loved going out to Ft. Sill and watching them practice fire the big artillery guns. Man those things pack a punch! I can only imagine what they are like today. Also I enjoyed going up to Mt. Scott on weekends and just looking out over the lake and surrounding landscape. Just beautiful man. Hope all is well Billyg. Keep smilin' bro.

Bob O'Shea
The Lyin' King

 

[billyg]

I didnt grow up in Lawton, I spent my teen years in Bartlesville, but I visited my late grandmother many times and spent many hot summers listening to the local radio all the time on a cheap TG&Y portable. Not much to do when you're still too young to drive.

Lawton radio was fun in the mid 70's when KLAW and KSWO 1380 were both rocking Top 40, and KCCO was country... and I also listened to KOMA, WKY and KNIN 990. (why didnt I make more tapes then?)

I'm a former alumnus of 1270. I DJ'd there when it was KWPR Claremore in 1985...what a nightmare. The station was under recievership by a local bank and went through 3 people wanting to own it. Constant turnover of personal, bounced checks, running without any compressor/limiter, The music director leaving and taking HIS record library which only left us with about 20 records to play for the whole day, and a lot more stories.

 

[stacker]

I'm a former alumnus of 1270. I DJ'd there when it was KWPR Claremore in 1985...what a nightmare. The station was under recievership by a local bank and went through 3 people wanting to own it. Constant turnover of personal, bounced checks, running without any compressor/limiter, The music director leaving and taking HIS record library which only left us with about 20 records to play for the whole day, and a lot more stories.

Yep, the mid-80's were dark years for 1270 (and a bunch of other stations). I'm always amazed by the amount of talent that ran through that station. I can remember when the KWPR control room mic wouldn't work if it were adjusted into a certain position (must have been a short somewhere). We learned to live with it. We also learned to live with that darn Gates Yard control board. What a POS. Playing spots from the Maggies...Been there. (the rewind could take your arm off). Those damned Gates turntables that would shift into 40 RPM if you were not careful with the gearshift. Still, compared to many other local stations, it was good place to learn. I once worked at a station in Norman which had the same pots assigned to both the cart machines and the turntables and you had to remember to switch between the two....talk about confusion.

Today, 1270 has moved it's transmitter out of Claremore and has relocated to a spot near Catoosa. Power is 5 kW, directional, with an effective 13,000 watts pointed at Tulsa (and the same amount pointing up I-44 toward Miami).

We're live and local from 6 AM to 7PM and running Dial Global's Cool Gold overnights and weekends.

Stan

 

[bitterlikeyou]

Bryan~

I agree! Kudos to the crew at KRVT. Glad we have them on the air!

 

[Bryan Pennington]

We're live and local from 6 AM to 7PM and running Dial Global's Cool Gold overnights and weekends.

Well that's good to hear. For some reason I thought it jumped back and forth between live and satellite during the day. I guess I was misinformed. Satellite 7p-6a certainly makes sense on that format on an AM.

Again, you guys are doing some great radio over there!

Bryan

 

[G Thompson]

That's what happens when you let loose a group of people who are good at what they do and love radio.

They do great radio without fear of failure.

KRVT had nowhere to go but up and it appears they've done just that.

Goes back to what I've heard great programmers say again and again. "Have Fun with it and so will your audience."

It's what happened when Mel, Dave and the crew were let loose on 1430 all those years ago for 14K.

And a word about Gene Savage. The man is one of the most unsung professionals in the market. I've known Gene since 1996 and he LOVES radio more than most of us ever have. Even when it's abused him, mocked him, driven him broke...he's been faithful to the medium and to his principles. What you see is what you get with Gene. You can count on that. He's straight forward and honest. And he's a good friend.

 

[stacker]

Well that's good to hear. For some reason I thought it jumped back and forth between live and satellite during the day. I guess I was misinformed. Satellite 7p-6a certainly makes sense on that format on an AM.

Again, you guys are doing some great radio over there!

Bryan

Actually you're correct. We go back to the network for two hours at 2 p.m. It's live, vs. a voice tracked two hours. The world doesn't need any more voice tracking. We're working on covering that period locally.

Thanks for the nice words. Everyone at the station is having fun...not many rules...just doing radio like it used to be done.

 

[billyg]

Today, 1270 has moved it's transmitter out of Claremore and has relocated to a spot near Catoosa. Power is 5 kW, directional, with an effective 13,000 watts pointed at Tulsa (and the same amount pointing up I-44 toward Miami).

We're live and local from 6 AM to 7PM and running Dial Global's Cool Gold overnights and weekends.

Stan

That's terrific! I'm glad you were able to get a power increase for 1270. When I was there in '85 KWPR was a 1K daytimer right by the Wal-Mart. It had an McMartin control board and Russco turntables. The station had been shut down a few months later and when they opened it back up, all the mics in the station were missing. So they went over to Radio Shack and bought a bunch of "Highball" mics... which worked pretty well for $50 mics.

The guy who wanted to buy it had just bought 2 Panasonic CD players and big stack of Motown and MCA CD's for oldies. It was my first time using CD's on the air and I learned quickly to keep them clean so they wouldn't skip.

I remember the station had McMartin or Sparta transmitter, and they had an old Gates transmitter next to it for a backup. The station had a Durroughs Audio Processor, but it had died, so the first couple weeks we got it back on the air (I was working weekends) they ran straight from the control board to the Xmitter. So it was a real hassle trying to balance CD's, 45's, Carts, Network and my Voice, and I got chewed out the first day by the "owner" (who was the guy who got in HUGE trouble with Arbitron when he was running KELi in 82-3 and put a big ad in the Tulsa paper wanting to buy diaries) for not keeping the volume consistent. I about quit the first day..

Anyway I'm glad you're having fun running KRVT and KZLI (I wish you could have gotten the KELI calls). I just wish your stations streamed on the web so I and other out-of-towners could listen.

Billy

 

[G Thompson]

Remember when the skinheads bought KWPR?

Oy.

 

[Bryan Pennington]

And a word about Gene Savage. The man is one of the most unsung professionals in the market. I've known Gene since 1996 and he LOVES radio more than most of us ever have. Even when it's abused him, mocked him, driven him broke...he's been faithful to the medium and to his principles. What you see is what you get with Gene. You can count on that. He's straight forward and honest. And he's a good friend.

I agree completely.

 

[Bryan Pennington]

The world doesn't need any more voice tracking. We're working on covering that period locally.

I guess it all depends where you rank voicetracking. Here's my ranking...

1. Live and local if the talent is good.
2. Local voicetracking.
3. Out-of-market voicetracking.
4. Live and local if the talent is bad.

11. Satellite even if it's good.



Bryan

 

[John Durkee]

I have rapidly become a P-1 to KRVT. The station reminds me why I wanted to be in radio all those years ago -- PERSONALITY! It is just fun to listen too. Having worked with Riddle and Gene in the past, I know their passion for radio and I hear it. I even like the CBS News at the top of the hour. Okay-- I would like a little more local news----but overall KRVT is adult sounding with out taking itself so seriously. They have fun. It is real radio---not the homogenized corporate cookie-cutter stuff. I love the fact whenever I tune in--- it is live person (albeit sometimes he or she is from space) and not voice tracked.
Stan is fun to listen to in the morning and his traffic reports are just as accurate as everyone else's. He is doing what I always wanted to do. Own a station and have fun with it. Keep it up.

 

[GeneSavage]

Was 1270 the station that tried to resurrect the talk line up that ran on 1430 for a while? Seems like it was "Tulsa Talk Radio" or something like that, and the calls matched it, like KTTR, or KTRT, or something like that... they had studios at 21st & Mingo, I think, and you couldn't really pick up the station there...

I was interested because it was actually live local content. Some of it was good, most of it didn't seem that hot to me but I was a little young for the talk station audience anyway so it might have been interesting if I had been older... even then, though, I felt confident what they were doing WOULDN'T work, mainly because of signal limitations and not targeting where they reached.

...That wasn't the 1st time, or last time, I saw a station put its studios outside of its own signal, or try to program to a market it wasn't reaching... (Anybody remember "The Station You've Been Waiting For"? Or the TV commercials for them with the janitor "playing" his feather duster as a trumpet?)

1270 has come a LONG way from the 80s... back then, it was a distant signal when heard from 41st & Garnett, today it is city-grade in Tulsa and surrounding communities, & listenable most places at night... I even picked it up (barely) in Oklahoma City! Hopefully streaming isn't be too far away...

 

[Kent]

Was 1270 the station that tried to resurrect the talk line up that ran on 1430 for a while? Seems like it was "Tulsa Talk Radio" or something like that, and the calls matched it, like KTTR, or KTRT, or something like that... they had studios at 21st & Mingo, I think, and you couldn't really pick up the station there...

It was KTRT, and the studios were at 21st and Garnett. I worked in the same complex teaching English for the Adult Basic Education program during part of that time.

I was interested because it was actually live local content. Some of it was good, most of it didn't seem that hot to me but I was a little young for the talk station audience anyway so it might have been interesting if I had been older... even then, though, I felt confident what they were doing WOULDN'T work, mainly because of signal limitations and not targeting where they reached.

It wasn't all live. I remember being allowed into the studios one evening when we took our customary break. They were running something like BRN. That was the first day the station went live 24/7. It used to always sign off at midnight. It also got the FM at 102.1 (the old KBIX-FM) the very next day.

1270 has come a LONG way from the 80s... back then, it was a distant signal when heard from 41st & Garnett, today it is city-grade in Tulsa and surrounding communities, & listenable most places at night... I even picked it up (barely) in Oklahoma City! Hopefully streaming isn't be too far away...

I have to say the station isn't bad for what it is. I don't get down to Tulsa to listen to it very often, but I did recommend it to my mother after she complained Kool 106.1 wasn't playing her kind of oldies anymore.

 

[stacker]

Remember when the skinheads bought KWPR?

I can't remember if they bought the station or just bought time. I was in OKC at the time an saw the article in the Oklahoman about Neo-Nazi programming coming from Claremore, of all places. The surprise being that Claremore is Old School Nazi, not Neo-nazi.

BillyG~ I found the highball mic's (hidden in the ceiling behind the transmitter) when we moved the McMartian transmitter out of the Ramm Road location. They were promptly stolen by an account executive. The McMartin XMTR found a new home in Lousiana. The DAP is still missing in action.