Is this station "still" for sale ?
just curious about the interesting long term history..
just curious about the interesting long term history..
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KZRO [2020]
- Thread starter Radio-Bored-Op
- Start date
Every station is for sale for the right price.
KZRO CP Expires: 10/10/2021
It'll expire unbuilt and be re applied for again
Does this station have potential as is now, or.. if it built out the CP, with the larger signal but remained a local mount shasta/dunsmuir station, just with the abiltiy to get into redding? The stations only had one employee for ages, the owner... and i wonder what theyre billing
The sale of Buffalo Broadcasting's KSYC & KHWA-FM to Southern Oregon University (Jefferson Public Radio) was dismissed.
This just showed up on the FCC site about the sale of KSYC/KHWA.
Comment #1 Dismissed -inadvertently accepted for filing.
Comment #1 Dismissed -inadvertently accepted for filing.
The sale of Buffalo Broadcasting's KSYC & KHWA-FM to Southern Oregon University (Jefferson Public Radio) was just refiled.
KZRO is featured in a CBS Bay Area TV Story. It's a one-person shop and unfortunately has missed some upgrade opportunities along the way. Still, a fun listen. (Technically , the community of license is nearby Dunsmuir.)
www.cbsnews.com
CBS Bay Area - Breaking Local News, First Alert Weather & Sports
One-man radio station in shadow of Mount Shasta keeps the rock rollin'
Northern California can claim something of an antique: rock 'n roll radio done the old fashioned way and, for one man, that means doing it the hard way.
www.cbsnews.com
Last edited:
RE: BUILDING OUT THE KZRO C1/CP
There's been lots of board chatter on this topic over the years... mainly, that I couldn't afford to move KZRO. Not true.
Have a day off... shall elaborate.
After great expense, there's a few reasons I didn't build out this CP to cover the Redding metro.
MULTIPLE ISSUES
The Hatchet Mountain site is somewhat problematic, especially physical accessibility in the winter. Plus there's no broadband at that site. Didn't like the Cell freq. STL/COMM option that others use which would have required an extra hop from Mt. Shasta.
It's hard enough to get to our current site in Mount Shasta in the winter, let alone Hatchet, an ice machine. To get a 70dBu into our COL/Dunsmuir, it had to be THAT site, period, because of mountain ridges everywhere.
EMF/KLOVE 107.9 refused to let us up on their tower (which they built out on top of a huge old ATT microwave structure) which would have required a modification/extension. I wanted it, tower owner LaRue wanted it, but EMF wouldn't budge since they built and 'owned' the tower), so we investigated Mapleton's KRRX/Class C tower right next door. Lots of room. They liked the idea.
Interestingly, Rob Wolf (who was Regional Manager of the Mapleton Redding and Chico clusters) had been helping me out in Shasta with some transmitter issues. Tuning motor failed. Great guy. He was pushing for us to attach directly below the KRRX 6-bay with our 4 bay to his buddy that owned Mapleton... who had called him out from the East Coast to manage his cluster.
They were even considering ideas of buying me out while letting me continue to program the station, which included moving my studio into their facility in Redding. A proposal was submitted to the big cheese. A few months later, rumors started that the clusters would be sold. Changed everything.
While chit chatting biz at the tower site, he says... 'I know you want to build Redding out and leave Shasta, but I think you might want to re-consider that.. you have it made up here man..... a lock on the market, no format competition and a ski park to boot. And Redding is over-radioed anyway'. That didn't sink in for a while, but eventually did.
In the past few years, Redding (to me) has become an undesirable place to live and work. Sorry Redding listeners.
Over the past few years, seems the crime rate has jumped with lots of crackheads etc., and has become a Trump market, pushing bogus policies from the Right in local government. Statistically, Shasta County has become the Reddest Red county in the entire state of California. Not really a fan.
Then, towards the end of my CP extension, a Shasta Lake City Class A that puts a 60dBu over Redding sold for somewhere around $80K. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Leave a ski park town for a metro I didn't want to live in (not quite the Mayberry I mentioned in the CBS piece).. granted, I would have hit more people w/the C1 (around a quarter million under the 60dBu), but that somehow became less important. We currently hit 125K people under our 48dBu at 5k' with a valley below. And now they can listen to our format on our web player, iTunes, TuneIn Radio and Alexa. Not so when I first filed for the CP.
Then there's the fact that when I got here in 1995, I became the 5th commercial station in the market. Since then, four of them have sold and become non-coms, leaving me as the only commercial game in town for radio advertising. I noticed the comment above that they sold because of lack of advertising revenue. Gotta say, don't believe it was lack of local dollars, but that music listeners liked listening to Classic Hits/Classic Rock, never before available in the market which the Z plays.
Plus, current local owners bought the stations with a staff to pay including jocks, plus a debt load. I don't have either of those problems.
One of those stations tried copying my format through 3 different owners over the years, didn't work. My revenue has been consistent since the beginning. True, local packages are pretty cheap, but multi-agency rate card buys even it out.
Since the CBS piece, have had a few brokers inquiring if I'd be willing to sell as they had buyers that saw it. Told them not at this time. But if the time comes, I will.
And it's true, I won't get rich up here. When I left LA to develop Z100FM, another friend who owned the station I was DJ-ing for in LA (even during the Northridge Quake) told me that if I left the LA metro, I'd starve to death.
He's made millions. But here I am, and haven't starved to death yet Carl.
ENGINEERING STL QUESTION:
Since I'm on a radio board, here's a question for you techies.
Lately in the past few weeks, I've had intermittent dropouts on my STL. Maybe 10 seconds or so of static, then it locks back in.
Sometimes a few times a day, sometimes repeatedly around 5-6 times in a row. Then goes away. A few days later, starts up again.
Driving me nuts. It's either a bird landing on my SCALA STL receive dish, or a cap going south on my exciter
or receiver. Transmitter parameters remain constant as to temp and power level. Remote reports all systems good, and when observing on the Spectrum Analyzer during the event, signal drops down and stereo carrier lost.
Then slowly creeps back up to stereo lock. WTF.
If it's a technical issue, have to get my SAC tower engineer man Mike up here... we've been hammered with snow the past few months, and more snow advisories in the next few days.. but he's on vacation this week. Will be time to pull out 2 sleds to get up there hopefully next week if the glitch doesn't stop.. every time it happens, my blood pressure goes up.
So, anyone ever heard of birds (hawks, eagles or whatever flies around up here) perching on the probe for a view? Tiz a great view, about 100' AGL.
SUMMARY
Like Hanks said concerning baseball in League of their Own, 'If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it'.
Spring training around the corner..... Go Cubbies!
dmc
There's been lots of board chatter on this topic over the years... mainly, that I couldn't afford to move KZRO. Not true.
Have a day off... shall elaborate.
After great expense, there's a few reasons I didn't build out this CP to cover the Redding metro.
MULTIPLE ISSUES
The Hatchet Mountain site is somewhat problematic, especially physical accessibility in the winter. Plus there's no broadband at that site. Didn't like the Cell freq. STL/COMM option that others use which would have required an extra hop from Mt. Shasta.
It's hard enough to get to our current site in Mount Shasta in the winter, let alone Hatchet, an ice machine. To get a 70dBu into our COL/Dunsmuir, it had to be THAT site, period, because of mountain ridges everywhere.
EMF/KLOVE 107.9 refused to let us up on their tower (which they built out on top of a huge old ATT microwave structure) which would have required a modification/extension. I wanted it, tower owner LaRue wanted it, but EMF wouldn't budge since they built and 'owned' the tower), so we investigated Mapleton's KRRX/Class C tower right next door. Lots of room. They liked the idea.
Interestingly, Rob Wolf (who was Regional Manager of the Mapleton Redding and Chico clusters) had been helping me out in Shasta with some transmitter issues. Tuning motor failed. Great guy. He was pushing for us to attach directly below the KRRX 6-bay with our 4 bay to his buddy that owned Mapleton... who had called him out from the East Coast to manage his cluster.
They were even considering ideas of buying me out while letting me continue to program the station, which included moving my studio into their facility in Redding. A proposal was submitted to the big cheese. A few months later, rumors started that the clusters would be sold. Changed everything.
While chit chatting biz at the tower site, he says... 'I know you want to build Redding out and leave Shasta, but I think you might want to re-consider that.. you have it made up here man..... a lock on the market, no format competition and a ski park to boot. And Redding is over-radioed anyway'. That didn't sink in for a while, but eventually did.
In the past few years, Redding (to me) has become an undesirable place to live and work. Sorry Redding listeners.
Over the past few years, seems the crime rate has jumped with lots of crackheads etc., and has become a Trump market, pushing bogus policies from the Right in local government. Statistically, Shasta County has become the Reddest Red county in the entire state of California. Not really a fan.
Then, towards the end of my CP extension, a Shasta Lake City Class A that puts a 60dBu over Redding sold for somewhere around $80K. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Leave a ski park town for a metro I didn't want to live in (not quite the Mayberry I mentioned in the CBS piece).. granted, I would have hit more people w/the C1 (around a quarter million under the 60dBu), but that somehow became less important. We currently hit 125K people under our 48dBu at 5k' with a valley below. And now they can listen to our format on our web player, iTunes, TuneIn Radio and Alexa. Not so when I first filed for the CP.
Then there's the fact that when I got here in 1995, I became the 5th commercial station in the market. Since then, four of them have sold and become non-coms, leaving me as the only commercial game in town for radio advertising. I noticed the comment above that they sold because of lack of advertising revenue. Gotta say, don't believe it was lack of local dollars, but that music listeners liked listening to Classic Hits/Classic Rock, never before available in the market which the Z plays.
Plus, current local owners bought the stations with a staff to pay including jocks, plus a debt load. I don't have either of those problems.
One of those stations tried copying my format through 3 different owners over the years, didn't work. My revenue has been consistent since the beginning. True, local packages are pretty cheap, but multi-agency rate card buys even it out.
Since the CBS piece, have had a few brokers inquiring if I'd be willing to sell as they had buyers that saw it. Told them not at this time. But if the time comes, I will.
And it's true, I won't get rich up here. When I left LA to develop Z100FM, another friend who owned the station I was DJ-ing for in LA (even during the Northridge Quake) told me that if I left the LA metro, I'd starve to death.
He's made millions. But here I am, and haven't starved to death yet Carl.
ENGINEERING STL QUESTION:
Since I'm on a radio board, here's a question for you techies.
Lately in the past few weeks, I've had intermittent dropouts on my STL. Maybe 10 seconds or so of static, then it locks back in.
Sometimes a few times a day, sometimes repeatedly around 5-6 times in a row. Then goes away. A few days later, starts up again.
Driving me nuts. It's either a bird landing on my SCALA STL receive dish, or a cap going south on my exciter
or receiver. Transmitter parameters remain constant as to temp and power level. Remote reports all systems good, and when observing on the Spectrum Analyzer during the event, signal drops down and stereo carrier lost.
Then slowly creeps back up to stereo lock. WTF.
If it's a technical issue, have to get my SAC tower engineer man Mike up here... we've been hammered with snow the past few months, and more snow advisories in the next few days.. but he's on vacation this week. Will be time to pull out 2 sleds to get up there hopefully next week if the glitch doesn't stop.. every time it happens, my blood pressure goes up.
So, anyone ever heard of birds (hawks, eagles or whatever flies around up here) perching on the probe for a view? Tiz a great view, about 100' AGL.
SUMMARY
Like Hanks said concerning baseball in League of their Own, 'If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it'.
Spring training around the corner..... Go Cubbies!
dmc
Many thanks to Dennis Michaels, the brains, talent, and funding behind KZRO for informing us here. The loss of the Yreka-Weed Buffalo Broadcasting stations definitely means KZRO is the only game in time. KZRO is clearly a great station with a deep selection.
Redding-Chico is seriously over-radio'd as noted. JPR started buying up AMs in Northern California but now is acquiring FMs there. They grabbed KWCA, a C2 in Palo Cedro and likely aren't done in that region. Bustos' KZTZ Cottonwood (92.1) will launch at some point and perhaps someday KRBN 94.3 really will have a real 24x7 Radio Laser live feed. I suspect a few AMs could go away and no one would notice.
Redding-Chico is seriously over-radio'd as noted. JPR started buying up AMs in Northern California but now is acquiring FMs there. They grabbed KWCA, a C2 in Palo Cedro and likely aren't done in that region. Bustos' KZTZ Cottonwood (92.1) will launch at some point and perhaps someday KRBN 94.3 really will have a real 24x7 Radio Laser live feed. I suspect a few AMs could go away and no one would notice.
KWCA under Flinn Broadcasting was such a disaster on several levels.
Bad, bad GM.
Hard time collecting what we billed/sold on
No RF based stl, no freq's available. So Briclink at the studio with DSL and wireless ISP at the transmitter
And sales people who didnt understand what the format was supposed to be and regularly tried suggesting music that was NOT appropriate for the format.
https://www.facebook.com/dennis.mic...PqdtHEv1yA0cmNU6c5qx_tLfy60EjMxQ&__tn__=<,P-R
Shared with Public
Hi radio people.. here's how we're trying to fight this snow and stay on the air. Quite the winter. Copied off our FB page. An email to my Sacramento engineer trying to resolve issues. The STL issue continues w/946M periodic static. Has to be the PLL circuit in the old Marti.
KZRO AND SNOW
We've been getting hammered up here. Power company throwing surges (trees down) that flipped off our 60 amp breakers off multiple times at the tower. Power surge fried our STL Microwave receiver known as THE ISSUE. Seems to be a PPL (Phase Locked Loop) glitch for you techies. First thought it might be birds haha).
Anyway, here's tonight's update to our Sacramento engineer who who works on my high power stuff at the site.... he's scheduled to come up to install a lot of new equipment.. For Last Sunday. Didn't happen. Now the snowstorm intervenes. Apparently, this is what I do, vs. kicking back and trying to be funny on the radio. Gotta love it... so here's the Email I sent him. He's going WTF haha.
Guy works on Sutro tower in SF and more, then me. My issue is circuit breakers and our Studio to Tower microwave link on 946 Meg on your dial that transmits the Z signal from our studio to our tower site. I love radio. Especially to the people that come up me to say 'Woah, you have a great job. Just sitting around playing music all day'. Again, Tom Hanks. 'If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it'.
But, there's good thing, another Cubbies game on tomorrow just like it's spring.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Mike..
I send these emails vs. phone cuz it's easier.
Know yer a phone guy.
TODAY
Breakers tripped again this morning. Right when my Cubs
game was starting...haha.
Was lucky enough to get my Fun Factory sled guys (takes 2 in this weather to dig) for access the tower. We thought they would have yesterday's trail to jump into... but there was 2' of new snow on top so was invisible.
Took FF 2 1/2 hours to get from Rt.89 to the shack yesterday. Broken down Snocat half way up. Only 2 hours today.
Yesterday, I called my local PPL contact that coordinates w/me for planned outages.
Left VMail. Asked if they could clear out the turnoff to get a truck and trailer in off Rt. 89 so I could get the main back up. He's a listener which is helpful, but I assume busy as Hell.
Sure hope that wasn't his cat that broke down half way up. That's how bad it is. Expert back country sled riders were the only way with these amounts of snow, layer apon layer.
Left a 5' drop on the trail to sled over. They got stuck and had to dig out yesterday and today.
THE STL ISSUE
As luck would have it, when we fired up the QEI and I shut down the LP and rehooked everything, THE ISSUE happened within 15 seconds while on the phone with my FF guys. I told him to check the top two meters in the rack. He identified the Marti receiver.
Said meter dropped way low, then came back up to where it was to 0 dBm. Hows that for luck having eyes on the issue w/8' of snow up there.
BREAKER FAILURE ISSUE
Looks like good old Henry has just what I need.
Great reviews from Mount Wilson/LA engineers who
are sick of driving to their site to flip the breakers.
Just have to figure out which one I need. Funny thing, Henry was right across the street where I worked for years at 1999 Bundy Drive. Now, my old studio is FOX TV in my old studio which they bought. We had custom 3d floor floating floors to reduce noise.
Our other studio was in Westwood at Wilshire+Westwood on the 24th floor. Good times except for during Earthquakes. Fun place on the roof to sail paper airplanes. Whoever got closest to the
Federal Building didn't pay for lunch.
But think Henry has the best option to eliminate multiple trips to the tower to flip the breakers.
https://henryeng.com/powerclamp/
henryeng.com
PowerClamp – Henry Engineering
https://henryeng.com/powerclamp/
STL
As to the STL issue, not sure what backup you have there that you were preparing for us.... but would you be willing to ship it up here to me, and I'll sled up and install it. I assume it just requires the swapping of the composite cable.
in the rack. Would seem senseless for you to drive up here from SAC just for that now that we know what THE ISSUE is, being Marti STL receiver.. you'll be coming up when the snow melts to install new stuff, so it will save you a trip.
If so, ship to my house: XXXXXXX, Mt. Shasta, 96067, and send me the shipping bill.
I've heard THE ISSUE maybe 10X or more since I fired up the main today. Would be SOL should the PPL circuit fail to lock during THE ISSUE. I'd be on LP for a while.
But, I bet the Ski Park loves this... and I'm right next door to them up on the Mountain.
Just thinking out loud here bro...
thx
dmc
--
DENNIS MICHAELS-GM
KZRO 100.1-FM Radio
Z-Channel Radio LLC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Delivery: 113 E. Alma Street
Postal: PO Box 1234
Mount Shasta, CA 96067
Studio: 530 926-1332
Fax: 530 926-0737
Email: [email protected]
CONNECT TO THE Z-CHANNEL LIVE
Catch Z100FM on web+mobile with LIVE HQ
streaming and more at: www.zchannelradio.com,
or click HERE to listen. Also available on Alexa..
'Play Z Channel Radio', and TuneIn Radio/KZRO..
or just tune it to 100.1FM covering 24,000 sq. miles.
Z100FM Live Radio
Dennis Michaels
·Shared with Public
Hi radio people.. here's how we're trying to fight this snow and stay on the air. Quite the winter. Copied off our FB page. An email to my Sacramento engineer trying to resolve issues. The STL issue continues w/946M periodic static. Has to be the PLL circuit in the old Marti.
KZRO AND SNOW
We've been getting hammered up here. Power company throwing surges (trees down) that flipped off our 60 amp breakers off multiple times at the tower. Power surge fried our STL Microwave receiver known as THE ISSUE. Seems to be a PPL (Phase Locked Loop) glitch for you techies. First thought it might be birds haha).
Anyway, here's tonight's update to our Sacramento engineer who who works on my high power stuff at the site.... he's scheduled to come up to install a lot of new equipment.. For Last Sunday. Didn't happen. Now the snowstorm intervenes. Apparently, this is what I do, vs. kicking back and trying to be funny on the radio. Gotta love it... so here's the Email I sent him. He's going WTF haha.
Guy works on Sutro tower in SF and more, then me. My issue is circuit breakers and our Studio to Tower microwave link on 946 Meg on your dial that transmits the Z signal from our studio to our tower site. I love radio. Especially to the people that come up me to say 'Woah, you have a great job. Just sitting around playing music all day'. Again, Tom Hanks. 'If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it'.
But, there's good thing, another Cubbies game on tomorrow just like it's spring.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Mike..
I send these emails vs. phone cuz it's easier.
Know yer a phone guy.
TODAY
Breakers tripped again this morning. Right when my Cubs
game was starting...haha.
Was lucky enough to get my Fun Factory sled guys (takes 2 in this weather to dig) for access the tower. We thought they would have yesterday's trail to jump into... but there was 2' of new snow on top so was invisible.
Took FF 2 1/2 hours to get from Rt.89 to the shack yesterday. Broken down Snocat half way up. Only 2 hours today.
Yesterday, I called my local PPL contact that coordinates w/me for planned outages.
Left VMail. Asked if they could clear out the turnoff to get a truck and trailer in off Rt. 89 so I could get the main back up. He's a listener which is helpful, but I assume busy as Hell.
Sure hope that wasn't his cat that broke down half way up. That's how bad it is. Expert back country sled riders were the only way with these amounts of snow, layer apon layer.
Left a 5' drop on the trail to sled over. They got stuck and had to dig out yesterday and today.
THE STL ISSUE
As luck would have it, when we fired up the QEI and I shut down the LP and rehooked everything, THE ISSUE happened within 15 seconds while on the phone with my FF guys. I told him to check the top two meters in the rack. He identified the Marti receiver.
Said meter dropped way low, then came back up to where it was to 0 dBm. Hows that for luck having eyes on the issue w/8' of snow up there.
BREAKER FAILURE ISSUE
Looks like good old Henry has just what I need.
Great reviews from Mount Wilson/LA engineers who
are sick of driving to their site to flip the breakers.
Just have to figure out which one I need. Funny thing, Henry was right across the street where I worked for years at 1999 Bundy Drive. Now, my old studio is FOX TV in my old studio which they bought. We had custom 3d floor floating floors to reduce noise.
Our other studio was in Westwood at Wilshire+Westwood on the 24th floor. Good times except for during Earthquakes. Fun place on the roof to sail paper airplanes. Whoever got closest to the
Federal Building didn't pay for lunch.
But think Henry has the best option to eliminate multiple trips to the tower to flip the breakers.
https://henryeng.com/powerclamp/
henryeng.com
PowerClamp – Henry Engineering
STL
As to the STL issue, not sure what backup you have there that you were preparing for us.... but would you be willing to ship it up here to me, and I'll sled up and install it. I assume it just requires the swapping of the composite cable.
in the rack. Would seem senseless for you to drive up here from SAC just for that now that we know what THE ISSUE is, being Marti STL receiver.. you'll be coming up when the snow melts to install new stuff, so it will save you a trip.
If so, ship to my house: XXXXXXX, Mt. Shasta, 96067, and send me the shipping bill.
I've heard THE ISSUE maybe 10X or more since I fired up the main today. Would be SOL should the PPL circuit fail to lock during THE ISSUE. I'd be on LP for a while.
But, I bet the Ski Park loves this... and I'm right next door to them up on the Mountain.
Just thinking out loud here bro...
thx
dmc
--
DENNIS MICHAELS-GM
KZRO 100.1-FM Radio
Z-Channel Radio LLC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Delivery: 113 E. Alma Street
Postal: PO Box 1234
Mount Shasta, CA 96067
Studio: 530 926-1332
Fax: 530 926-0737
Email: [email protected]
CONNECT TO THE Z-CHANNEL LIVE
Catch Z100FM on web+mobile with LIVE HQ
streaming and more at: www.zchannelradio.com,
or click HERE to listen. Also available on Alexa..
'Play Z Channel Radio', and TuneIn Radio/KZRO..
or just tune it to 100.1FM covering 24,000 sq. miles.
Z100FM Live Radio
- Status