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KYW No Longer Says "1060", Only "103.9."

Let's look at the "new" formats since block programming died with the advent of television in the post-WW II decade. In other words, in the last 70 to 75 years... three quarters of a century.


  • All news. First one in the US was Extra News Over Los Angeles done by McLendon in about 1960. "Domesticated" in the late 60's in New York and LA.

"Domesticated". Interesting choice of verb.
 
In that the station no longer exists, a victim of the expanded band, I can no longer look up the information but KLIQ Portland OR was the first All News station in the country, beginning and ending the format in 1959. They were fairly busy changing formats that year, having just hired all the old KVAN Top 40 jocks, when that station was sold to Don Burden and became KISN. That format existed for a matter of weeks before changing to something else, which gave way to All News and soon, Talk, which was their mainstay in the 1960s and '70s.
What was KLIQ's frequency and where was its stick, do you remember those? And how did the "expanded band" kill it, for us outside the radio biz?

Oh, and apparently "KLIQ" lives, in call sign anyway, in Nebraska.

 
What was KLIQ's frequency and where was its stick, do you remember those? And how did the "expanded band" kill it, for us outside the radio biz?

Oh, and apparently "KLIQ" lives, in call sign anyway, in Nebraska.

KLIQ was a 5KW daytimer on 1290 that eventually procured a somewhat equal nighttime signal by licensing to a suburb. Sometime after it was sold to Crawford Broadcasting, it became the second station to receive an expanded band channel. Expanded Band channels were assigned to frequencies that created the most interference The rules of the game were that five years after licensing, either the original or expanded band station would have to go dark, never to be heard again. That's exactly what happened but then, a funny thing happened. Everyone else refused to relinquish their old frequencies and the FCC never pressed the matter but Portland Oregon ended up with a permanently dark 1290! 1290's daytime antenna was located at Oaks(Amusement)Park, which has no physical address to this day! It currently diplexes 1040 and 1410AM. Before the 1941 frequency adjustment moved KWJJ to 1080, they used the same tower on(You guessed it.)1040! I wonder if the current owners of 1040 have any idea that the tower they are using was actually designed for the same frequency, well over 80 years ago!
 
Look at the 1060 and 103.9 coverage maps. The FM gets whiped out by 104.1 from Allentown in my part of Bucks County.
I just don't know why they can't just say KYW Newsradio 1060 AM and !03.9 FM.
 
It may not be worth it to continue to promote the AM based on a relatively smaller part of their area. Trade offs are reality, and if they feel it’s beneficial to focus on the FM, there’s the reason.
 
It may not be worth it to continue to promote the AM based on a relatively smaller part of their area. Trade offs are reality, and if they feel it’s beneficial to focus on the FM, there’s the reason.
Especially since IIRC up thread it was mentioned that 103.9 reaches the moneyed part of the market.
 
And there was also the Southern Gospel format, largely in the South. The music has a strong country influence. Not sure if it was ever a money maker, but it skews way too old to be one today.
Also largely ignored on these forums, the urban/black gospel format. The music had been apart of many black radio stations going way back, but nobody tried it as a 24/7 format until the 80's (I think WYCB in Washington DC was first). Today the format has a more contemporary sound, and many markets have very successful stations on FM.
 
Oh hey, KLIQ! In it's modern form as 94.5 the Breeze out of Hastings, I'll receive it a few times a year. (313 mi)
 
Look at the 1060 and 103.9 coverage maps. The FM gets whiped out by 104.1 from Allentown in my part of Bucks County.
I just don't know why they can't just say KYW Newsradio 1060 AM and !03.9 FM.
I was surprised that when they finally decided to do it, they did it with what is probably the worst FM signal the market has to offer. I get interference on 103.9 in Marlton, Burlington County. Aren't Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in NJ actually part of the Philadelphia radio market?
 
I was surprised that when they finally decided to do it, they did it with what is probably the worst FM signal the market has to offer. I get interference on 103.9 in Marlton, Burlington County. Aren't Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in NJ actually part of the Philadelphia radio market?
In a sense that it was the only FM frequency available, they took what they could get.

Now why didn't Audacy do something like, move WTDY to 103.9 and put KYW on the bigger 96.5 signal? I guess they figured money wise, they could get more if KYW was on 103.9 and WTDY stayed on 96.5. Cash gains with KYW on 96.5 might not have been greater than the cash loss if WTDY moved to 103.9.
 
In a sense that it was the only FM frequency available, they took what they could get.

Now why didn't Audacy do something like, move WTDY to 103.9 and put KYW on the bigger 96.5 signal? I guess they figured money wise, they could get more if KYW was on 103.9 and WTDY stayed on 96.5. Cash gains with KYW on 96.5 might not have been greater than the cash loss if WTDY moved to 103.9.
In my town, a local AM has a 250 watt x-lator on 99.5 FM, and it really doesn't have anywhere to go either, because my market is packed. Still, it seems like a poor excuse for plopping the translator outside of town (7 miles east) and hope it rimshots in, despite the frequency already dealing with a lot of noise already, and sharing with another out of town station that usually dominates. They probably could make 96.3 work in my city. Now moving back to the KYW situation, what other stations do you hear on 103.9? WNBM?
 
Edit: I looked up a Longley-Rice calculation for WPHI, and it looks like you would have a hard time receiving them in Marlton anyways, but the good news is that they CP up to 370 watts, which should help.
 
Also largely ignored on these forums, the urban/black gospel format. The music had been apart of many black radio stations going way back, but nobody tried it as a 24/7 format until the 80's (I think WYCB in Washington DC was first). Today the format has a more contemporary sound, and many markets have very successful stations on FM.
WQCC in Charlotte NC was one of the first and they talked about distributing their format to other stations. It was sometime around 1980.
 
Edit: I looked up a Longley-Rice calculation for WPHI, and it looks like you would have a hard time receiving them in Marlton anyways, but the good news is that they CP up to 370 watts, which should help.
It's not so much that I'm able to make out another station on 103.9, it's that I get interference. I mean, the purported point of getting KYW on an FM is to avoid the interference on the AM. The first time it happened, I was in an Uber and we were waiting for a light to turn green. As soon as the static took over, the driver reached up and hit the preset button for 1060 AM. Boom, crystal clear. And I remember thinking "Well, isn't it ironic?"
 
It's not so much that I'm able to make out another station on 103.9, it's that I get interference. I mean, the purported point of getting KYW on an FM is to avoid the interference on the AM. The first time it happened, I was in an Uber and we were waiting for a light to turn green. As soon as the static took over, the driver reached up and hit the preset button for 1060 AM. Boom, crystal clear. And I remember thinking "Well, isn't it ironic?"
How was that ironic? Did the Uber driver offer you a free ride when you'd already paid?
 
Oh the irony. Or iorny. Whichever.

Probably impossible to find an absolutely perfect solution for every situation, but these are amusing as they come up.
 
It's not so much that I'm able to make out another station on 103.9, it's that I get interference. I mean, the purported point of getting KYW on an FM is to avoid the interference on the AM. The first time it happened, I was in an Uber and we were waiting for a light to turn green. As soon as the static took over, the driver reached up and hit the preset button for 1060 AM. Boom, crystal clear. And I remember thinking "Well, isn't it ironic?"
Yeah, definitely ironic in the sense that FM was supposedly immune to RFI, and that your driver actually had a preset for 1060 KYW.
 
Yeah, definitely ironic in the sense that FM was supposedly immune to RFI, and that your driver actually had a preset for 1060 KYW.
Heck, I have presets on my car radio for both 103.9 and 1060. My Ford Explorer has 2 x 6 am presets. 1060, 1210, 950, 610, 860, 950, what other am stations do we actually have here now? My Ford radio has separate presets for am, fm, and Sirius. I like my wife’s Subaru, she has one pool of presets for am, fm, and XM. I thinks it might just be 1060and 1210 as the only am in her 30 presets.
 
My AM presets are 1060 and…nil. Not a darn thing I want to hear. And 1060 only because it was there pre 103.9. Doubt I’ll ever punch it up again.
 
Heck, I have presets on my car radio for both 103.9 and 1060. My Ford Explorer has 2 x 6 am presets. 1060, 1210, 950, 610, 860, 950, what other am stations do we actually have here now? My Ford radio has separate presets for am, fm, and Sirius. I like my wife’s Subaru, she has one pool of presets for am, fm, and XM. I thinks it might just be 1060and 1210 as the only am in her 30 presets.
When I bought a truck a few years ago, the previous owners had all sorts of presets on there, and in average I only use 5 of the AM ones. I am lucky to be on the outside edge of a metropolitan area of over 3 million, so there's better variety, however AM everwhere seems sold out to someone who can talk for 5 hrs straight LOL, and there's only so much talk I listen to before I get bored. Luckily, a new music station will pop up on my AM dial every once in a while.
 
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