Tacoma Radio stations targeting Seattle

[e-dawg]

Does anybody knows when these radio station started targeting the Seattle Metropolitan area instead of focusing on Tacoma?

KNKX 88.5 FM
KYFQ 91.7 FM
KIRO 97.3 FM
KHTP 103.7 FM
KBKS 106.1 FM

Also, when did KRWM 106.9 target the Puget Sound area instead of Bremerton/Kitsap County. Did KRWM broadcast on Gold Hill before they move to Capitol Hill and finally Cougar Mountain?

 

[boombox4]

I believe the station now known as KRWM used to be KHIT some time in the mid to late 1980's. KHIT targeted the Seattle metro.

KIRO-FM targeted Seattle as soon as they bought the station on that frequency. When the station on 97.3 was KNBQ, I think they targeted Seattle as well as Tacoma. I remember them IDing as being in Tacoma, but a lot of people in the Seattle area listened to them when they were competing against KPLZ and KUBE.

I think 106.1 was KRPM, and as a country station they targeted Seattle in the 1980s as well, although I could be mistaken. I remember them being presented as an alternative to KMPS-FM back then.

A lot of information on these stations and frequencies can be found on the Wiki's for those stations.

 

[semoochie]

Does anybody knows when these radio station started targeting the Seattle Metropolitan area instead of focusing on Tacoma?

KNKX 88.5 FM
KYFQ 91.7 FM
KIRO 97.3 FM
KHTP 103.7 FM
KBKS 106.1 FM

Also, when did KRWM 106.9 target the Puget Sound area instead of Bremerton/Kitsap County. Did KRWM broadcast on Gold Hill before they move to Capitol Hill and finally Cougar Mountain?

I believe the station now known as KRWM used to be KHIT some time in the mid to late 1980's. KHIT targeted the Seattle metro.

KIRO-FM targeted Seattle as soon as they bought the station on that frequency. When the station on 97.3 was KNBQ, I think they targeted Seattle as well as Tacoma. I remember them IDing as being in Tacoma, but a lot of people in the Seattle area listened to them when they were competing against KPLZ and KUBE.

I think 106.1 was KRPM, and as a country station they targeted Seattle in the 1980s as well, although I could be mistaken. I remember them being presented as an alternative to KMPS-FM back then.

A lot of information on these stations and frequencies can be found on the Wiki's for those stations.

As I recall from my two trips to Seattle, KBRO was on 1490 and 106.9 was KBRO-FM. FM was really just starting to grow and most stations didn't have great facilities. I believe this predated anything on Cougar, let alone West Tiger. KTAC was on 850 and KTAC-FM was on 103.9 until moved to 103.7, to become KBRD, "Tacoma's Beautiful Bird". KTNT(Tacoma News Tribune)was on 1400, with KTNT-FM at 97.3 until changing to KNBQ. KLAY was on 1480 and KLAY-FM was 106.1.

 

[Kelly A]

Does anybody knows when these radio station started targeting the Seattle Metropolitan area instead of focusing on Tacoma?

KNKX 88.5 FM
KYFQ 91.7 FM
KIRO 97.3 FM
KHTP 103.7 FM
KBKS 106.1 FM

Also, when did KRWM 106.9 target the Puget Sound area instead of Bremerton/Kitsap County. Did KRWM broadcast on Gold Hill before they move to Capitol Hill and finally Cougar Mountain?

Yes KRWM was broadcasting from Gold Mt. as KHIT, licensed to Bremerton, WA. Eventually it moved to Cougar Mt.

KIRO-FM used to be KBSG, broadcasting from a site in Tacoma, but I can't remember the name of the hill. KBSG was the first FM to move to W. Tiger Mt (1988?) The reason I know this, is I helped build that original site on W. Tiger, now called West Tiger One. West Tiger was developed because King County had a moratorium on any new FM's to Cougar Mt. Viacom, who owned KBSG, really wanted a station that also covered Seattle because the markets were in the process of merging.

KHTP used to be KBRD, then KMTT. KBRD originally transmitted from Three Sisters Mt. and eventually migrated to W. Tiger as KMTT around 1991.

 

[valvashon]

KHIT at Capitol Hill

Spotted this at our Capitol Hill tower site. KHIT had their transmitter in a separate room and this was KTZZ's way of tracking their power use. Not sure if it's still metering the power use of a different tenant.

 

[Grounded Grid]

As noted, KRWM was the sister station of KBRO (circa 1965). The two were Bremerton's legacy stations until KTNT (then KPMA "positive mental attitude") went belly-up and moved to Silverdale under new owners. I moved to the area in '86. At the time, KITZ was under construction at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds. Prior to completion, their engineer got the gig to move KBRO-FM's transmitter from the Forest Ridge location of the AM tower to Gold Mtn. I finished the last part of the KITZ install as they moved from a single-wide trailer to their new building in '87.

After KBRO-FM moved out, became KHIT, KNUA, KKNW and KRWN (did I miss one?) I've worked on the various transmitters (the original Gates and two successive Nautels) for 3 of the 4 successive owners of the AM (including a bankruptcy trustee). I never saw the FM at Forest Ridge. By the time I got there, all vestiges of the installation were removed from the building.

After the stations split and went to different owners, KBRO-AM has taken its place in the obscurity of many of its sibling 1kW local signals, but seems to have found a home as part of a Spanish-language Christian network out of White Center. At least this iteration has lasted longer than all but the original. Over the past 33 years or so, it's been various full-service attempts, a short stint as part of a California-based gay/lesbian service and around 3 years as part of the ESPN Deportes network. As a stand-alone, KITZ suffered much the same fate; attempts at live, full-service ($$$) operation by 4 ownership groups. Currently, it's a mostly-automated media outlet for the Seattle-based 2nd Amendment Foundation.

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

KHTP used to be KBRD, then KMTT. KBRD originally transmitted from Three Sisters Mt. and eventually migrated to W. Tiger as KMTT around 1991.

Apparently, Three Sisters Mountain (near Enumclaw) was the first home of KBRD when they attempted to start targeting King County in the late 70's-early 80's. I remember reading on here it was a site that had no shore power -- everything was run on diesel generators for a decade! I can't imagine the logistics of getting fuel up there anytime from October-May. I can tell you based on hiking, amazing views of Pierce/South King County from up there at 4000' and a small tower is still up there (I'm assuming the FM broadcast stuff is long gone -- replaced with public safety and ham gear perhaps)

Like the stations licensed to Ft. Lauderdale, FL who had to deal with the ratings merger with Miami-Dade in the early 80's, the Tacoma stations were somewhat forced to upgrade their facilities to serve the new merged market.

 

[Bongwater]

Spotted this at our Capitol Hill tower site. KHIT had their transmitter in a separate room and this was KTZZ's way of tracking their power use. Not sure if it's still metering the power use of a different tenant.

When KHIT moved to Capitol Hill (1986), it's on-air brand at the time was "Power 106.9 K-H-I-T". This was the infamous Steve Weed era when he tried to make the station into a KNHC clone.

 

[davideduardo]

Like the stations licensed to Ft. Lauderdale, FL who had to deal with the ratings merger with Miami-Dade in the early 80's, the Tacoma stations were somewhat forced to upgrade their facilities to serve the new merged market.

When local managers voted in favor of joining the Miami and Ft Lauderdale markets in 1981, nearly every FM was already located in the area where all the TV stations were... roughly from the Crowder tower (the candelabra where Y-100 and others were located) down to the Dade/Broward line.

A couple of stations could not move... the FMs on One Biscayne and the Goulds class A that upgraded a number of years later... and 107.5 (at the Trail near Krome) which depended on some other stations to move to relocate to the new shared tower built in later years.

With one exception, all the FMs licensed to Ft Lauderdale were already competing in the Miami market as there was many times the revenue available there as in Broward, which was much smaller by comparison.

The whole idea of the consolidation was that a top 20 market attracted considerably greater national revenue than a top 30 market, and all the Class C FMs would benefit.

 

[AQH]

When local managers voted in favor of joining the Miami and Ft Lauderdale markets in 1981, nearly every FM was already located in the area where all the TV stations were... roughly from the Crowder tower (the candelabra where Y-100 and others were located) down to the Dade/Broward line.

A couple of stations could not move... the FMs on One Biscayne and the Goulds class A that upgraded a number of years later... and 107.5 (at the Trail near Krome) which depended on some other stations to move to relocate to the new shared tower built in later years.

With one exception, all the FMs licensed to Ft Lauderdale were already competing in the Miami market as there was many times the revenue available there as in Broward, which was much smaller by comparison.

The whole idea of the consolidation was that a top 20 market attracted considerably greater national revenue than a top 30 market, and all the Class C FMs would benefit.

Who cares? We're talking Seattle.

 

[bobdavcav]

Is Three Sisters where KMCQ was when they first moved up here? If they could run power up there that actually wouldn't be a bad site.

 

[Kelly A]

Apparently, Three Sisters Mountain (near Enumclaw) was the first home of KBRD when they attempted to start targeting King County in the late 70's-early 80's. I remember reading on here it was a site that had no shore power -- everything was run on diesel generators for a decade! I can't imagine the logistics of getting fuel up there anytime from October-May.

That's true. The KBRD/KMTT site was equipped with two Kohler 100kW diesel generators that ran the site 24/7. There was no utility power on Three Sisters. Everyone ran on generator. KMTT would alternate generators each week. The transmitter engineer (Stan), would either drive, snowmobile, or fly in a helicopter up to the site once per week to swap the generator in service, then change the engine oil and filter for the generator that had run the prior week. Each generator engine would be rebuilt in place every other year. There was a 10,000 gallon buried diesel tank, with main and backup lift pumps to fuel the generators. We would have the tank filled early September, before the first snow. That full tank would last the station easily until mid-Spring for a top-off.

I can tell you based on hiking, amazing views of Pierce/South King County from up there at 4000' and a small tower is still up there (I'm assuming the FM broadcast stuff is long gone -- replaced with public safety and ham gear perhaps)

That was a great site. At least at the time, the cost of powering the site via diesel, was annually less expensive than having to pay for utility power lines to be blasted into rock up the mountain.

 

[Kelly A]

Is Three Sisters where KMCQ was when they first moved up here? If they could run power up there that actually wouldn't be a bad site.

No they were on a different hill. KBRD/KMTT was the one and only broadcast station on Three Sisters Mt.

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

The whole idea of the consolidation was that a top 20 market attracted considerably greater national revenue than a top 30 market, and all the Class C FMs would benefit.

I'm presuming that was the rationale behind merging Tacoma in with Seattle. It allowed two smaller markets to be combined into a much larger one. Considering most of the Seattle FMs could be heard in Tacoma at the time, it was a no-brainer for them I reckon. The major issue were the Tacoma stations, only a couple of which (I think) had a particularly choice site to target Seattle and northern suburbs with. Just like KBRD and KBSG (or WCKO/WMXJ in the Miami-Ft Lauderdale example), these stations saw the writing on the wall a few years before consolidation and knew they had to find a better site to be a major player in the new market. What was once an 8 share in Tacoma would equate to about a 2.5 share in the combined Seattle-Tacoma market...

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

West Tiger was developed because King County had a moratorium on any new FM's to Cougar Mt. Viacom, who owned KBSG, really wanted a station that also covered Seattle because the markets were in the process of merging.

I want to say that KONG-TV has something to do with all that as well. They were all set to go on Cougar in the early/mid-80's, and then suddenly couldn't because of permits. Folks in that nice neighborhood up there didn't seem to want an additional 1 MW of radio waves pumping out from their backyard. Took them about 10 years, but KONG managed to get on the air (From Queen Anne Hill, I do believe)

 

[davideduardo]

I'm presuming that was the rationale behind merging Tacoma in with Seattle. It allowed two smaller markets to be combined into a much larger one. Considering most of the Seattle FMs could be heard in Tacoma at the time, it was a no-brainer for them I reckon. The major issue were the Tacoma stations, only a couple of which (I think) had a particularly choice site to target Seattle and northern suburbs with. Just like KBRD and KBSG (or WCKO/WMXJ in the Miami-Ft Lauderdale example), these stations saw the writing on the wall a few years before consolidation and knew they had to find a better site to be a major player in the new market. What was once an 8 share in Tacoma would equate to about a 2.5 share in the combined Seattle-Tacoma market...

From what I recall, Seattle merged with Tacoma around the time that FM was becoming dominant (also the reason in Miami). Arbitron MSAs were determined based on a combination of "most radio listening" and commute patterns.

As the suburbs began to overlap, and the Seattle FMs took over listening, it was natural to combine the markets. I notice that by the 1976 ratings period, the market was called "Seattle Everett Tacoma" so we can see that the FMs won and the AMs like KMO and KTAC lost.

The big Seattle AMs would have, in their majority, favored combining as many were directional towards the Pacific anyway.

When Miami merged with Ft Lauderdale, there were still underperforming FMs. Family owned WYOR, for example, had big power on a short stick... once EZ bought them, they upgraded and became competitive, signal wise.

A lot of the reason for non-maxed facilities had to do with the fact that FM had not justified the investment in big sticks and bigger transmitters up until a few "pioneers" like WMYQ and WHYI proved that FM could dominate the market.

Local accounts and agencies already combined the AQH numbers... they knew where their customer base lived. This was all about getting more national business into the market (I was one of the GMs at the voting meeting... it was contentious!).

 

[Bongwater]

KNBQ 97.3 from their Tacoma tower had a really good signal. It was one of the most popular stations in the Lynnwood area in the early '80s until KUBE started to seriously eat their lunch (around 1983.) It came in mostly fine in Vancouver, BC all the way to the hills of Astoria, OR. When they went to Tiger Mountain (and I remember the night in early 1988 because there was dead air, then they were off the air, then a few hours later, back on and the signal meter on my stereo REALLY lit up.)

About a few weeks later, they became KBSG.

I didn't hear about any moratorium on new FMs on Cougar. I thought it was great engineering and a lucky discovery: It finally fixed the downtown Everett problem (where Cougar Mountain signals disintegrate into unlistenable mush) and it only needed half the power. Regardless, it turned into a mass exodus from Cougar from there in the '90s. The only Cougar holdouts from that time were 93.3, 95.7 and 101.5 (and I think they're still there.)

 

[Bongwater]

I want to say that KONG-TV has something to do with all that as well. They were all set to go on Cougar in the early/mid-80's, and then suddenly couldn't because of permits. Folks in that nice neighborhood up there didn't seem to want an additional 1 MW of radio waves pumping out from their backyard. Took them about 10 years, but KONG managed to get on the air (From Queen Anne Hill, I do believe)

If KONG went to Cougar, you wouldn't be able to see it all over the air in most of their city of license (Everett) As I wrote earlier, Cougar Mountain FM signals disintegrate in downtown Everett and I don't think UHF-TV signals would do much better (they were a ghosty, snowy mush in Everett when they broadcast off Queen Anne.)

I thought Tiger Mountain would be an excellent spot for over the air TV towers. I was surprised the TV stations stayed where they were. But moving probably wasn't necessary because cable. And a friend told me even if they moved to Tiger, they'd still have these three landmark towers on Queen Anne they'd have to keep lit, painted and inspected and for what? If they tear those towers down, everyone will be out to get them (they're landmarks.)

 

[Kelly A]

KNBQ 97.3 from their Tacoma tower had a really good signal. It was one of the most popular stations in the Lynnwood area in the early '80s until KUBE started to seriously eat their lunch (around 1983.) It came in mostly fine in Vancouver, BC all the way to the hills of Astoria, OR. When they went to Tiger Mountain (and I remember the night in early 1988 because there was dead air, then they were off the air, then a few hours later, back on and the signal meter on my stereo REALLY lit up.)

When we brought W. Tiger on line that night, it was done in several power levels. At first, low power with no audio while I was up on the tower at the antenna tuning the matching network for lowest reflected power. I remember vividly, the snow was blowing sideways and it wasn't a pleasant place to be. Next I climbed down 30' or so out of the way while Clay slowly ran the power up with audio. We brought down the power again, while I climbed back up to tweak the fine match adjustment one more time. Then we ran the power up to the CP, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I didn't hear about any moratorium on new FMs on Cougar. I thought it was great engineering and a lucky discovery: It finally fixed the downtown Everett problem (where Cougar Mountain signals disintegrate into unlistenable mush) and it only needed half the power. Regardless, it turned into a mass exodus from Cougar from there in the '90s. The only Cougar holdouts from that time were 93.3, 95.7 and 101.5 (and I think they're still there.)

A couple select neighbors were frequently in the ear of King County. One particular squeaky wheel- a tinfoil hat-wearing (I'm not kidding) retired school teacher made it her mission to constantly lobby for the removal of FM stations from Cougar. Some of the residents would attend County meetings, making crazy claims about the RF coming from the top of the mountain. The County Council got sick of the complaints, and applied the moratorium until more study about the effects of RF could be done. They hired some unqualified research companies who were trying to learn how RF works, and the broadcasters hired experts on the effects of RF radiation. Like anything, there was back and forth for several years. The group that filed the CP for KONG did so for Cougar before the moratorium.

Eventually Ms. Tinfoil Hat and her husband moved out of the area, and the County caved and allowed broadcasters to construct on Cougar, provided the stations were consolidated into common antennas where possible. Existing stations with separate antennas were grandfathered-in.

 

[xmtrland]

My turn to go down memory lane.

When KNBQ moved from the tower location at Hwy16 and Union Street by Cheney stadium they moved to Indian hill, just up from Browns point. 106.1 also moved there before both ended up on Tiger mountain.

When KBRO FM moved from Forest Ridge to Gold Mountain they hauled the old gates 5KW up to the channel 20 transmitter site where they leased space on that tower. Original set up was the old gates 5KW feeding a six bay Phelps-Dodge antenna. Then Bob Bingham bought the station and changed it to KHIT. Bob also hired Cliff Foote, former KJR engineer that got shown the door over questionable purchases while working for KJR. They installed an eight bay ERI center fed antenna with a 27.5KW Continental FM rig. When they installed that antenna they never pressurized the antenna/coax which started to take on water about two years later. That was a mess. First time I ever disconnected a transmission line from a transmitter and had water run out. After the repairs the system was kept pressurized. Then KHIT moved to Capitol Hill then 106.9 moved to Cougar.

I do remember that old Gates BC-1T transmitter that KBRO AM used.

Gold Mountain was a beautiful tower location, lots of wild Rhododendrons up there, great views. Used to go four wheeling on the logging roads.

Anyone remember the inflatable King Kong on the Columbia center when it was under construction? Kong wanted to move there too.