Tucson's AM Throwaways

[caveman-97]

I define a "throwaway" as a station whose owner doesn't care if anyone listens to it or not. Or if they do care they aren't willing to spend a nickle on programming or promotion.

Present throwaways include 580, 830, 940, 990, 1080, 1330 and 1550

Honorable mention goes to 1290, 1490 and 1600.

Many of these stations have excellent coverage and some have had good ratings in the past.

I'd be hard pressed to name a market with more throwaways than Tucson has.

 

[radioman148]

I define a "throwaway" as a station whose owner doesn't care if anyone listens to it or not. Or if they do care they aren't willing to spend a nickle on programming or promotion.

Present throwaways include 580, 830, 940, 990, 1080, 1330 and 1550

Honorable mention goes to 1290, 1490 and 1600.

Many of these stations have excellent coverage and some have had good ratings in the past.

I'd be hard pressed to name a market with more throwaways than Tucson has.

That certainly is alot. How many AM keepers in your opinion?

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Present throwaways include 580, 830, 940, 990, 1080, 1330 and 1550.
Honorable mention goes to 1290, 1490 and 1600.

I wouldn't have 1080 or 1550 on the list, but I'd add 1450--what a horrible
excuse for an oldies station, and tinny-sounding to boot. Add 1210 too.

I'd be hard pressed to name a market with more throwaways than Tucson has.

Phoenix--740, 860, 1010, 1060, 1100, 1190, 1280, 1310, 1360, 1400, 1480,
1510, 1540. If based on crappy signal alone, add 1230.

Full disclosure: I'm not adding Lumberyard 1440 to this list, due to the, let's say,
uniqueness in how it's operated. We get tons-o-chuckles on the PHX board
discussing the Lumberyard--its bizarre on-air methods, owner Gumpdusky, and
its funky lamptimer. But an objective observer would probably flag 1440 too.
It's basically a high-end of the dial daytimer, with a 52-watt night authorization
that's mostly unused.

 

[Northwest Bobby]

I define a "throwaway" as a station whose owner doesn't care if anyone listens to it or not. Or if they do care they aren't willing to spend a nickle on programming or promotion.

Present throwaways include 580, 830, 940, 990, 1080, 1330 and 1550

Honorable mention goes to 1290, 1490 and 1600.

Many of these stations have excellent coverage and some have had good ratings in the past.

I'd be hard pressed to name a market with more throwaways than Tucson has.

1080 has "live" jocks on all day...so the idea that it's a juke box is crazy. The hot spot of community growth is the Green Valley-Sahuarita area. Now if they ran some 4th tier talk crap all day with no local connection, then I'll accept it being a throwaway station......

 

[TheLongArm]

Does anybody find it ironic that we're talking about how bad the AM band has become, and yet we have a poster here with the tag line of...

"Save AM radio...kill I-CRAP. "No hiss, no hash."

Wouldn't it be safe to say that at least 80% of the top 100 or so markets only have a single AM or two that even really show up in the ratings? And another 12-15-18 totally solid signals that not one in a hundred people could probably identify who the stations are.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of being able to drive at night and spend hours drifting up the AM dial, seeing what's coming in. Terrific fun! But to try to protect coverage areas that in most cases were never protected signal areas, or even go so far as allow some of the extremely distant coverage to go away to bring good usable signals back to the AM dial, does that make sense?

How about aggressively deleting licenses of failed stations? What about allowing AM stations to drop their analog signal and go fully digital? All receivers would still be capable of the stations doing well enough they wouldn't want to drop their analog, but for the multitude of others, a way to offer a much better quality service that during the allowed transmission hours, could be audibly close to any FM's service?

Other ideas...?

 

[caveman-97]

First, I"ll partly take back my assertion that KGVY is a throwaway. To their credit they are live and I think their owner genuinely cares about the station. For years, KGVY catered to seniors in and around Green Valley and played music that no other station offered. They sold a lot of ads in Green Valley. Today they are trying mainstream pop which is unlikely to generate much response on AM. Much of this music is available on FM and on other AM stations as well. KGVY has permission to move its tower to the KVOI site near First and Grant and I predict that will do more harm than good. Summary: good intentions but they will probably fail. Call it an unintentional throwaway.

KWFM-1450 does indeed have dreadful audio and nearly all of the programming is from far away. That said, they are the only outlet for 1960s rock. They fill a nitch and I think that Cheap Chanel does have some interest in the station.

KEVT-1210. All that yelling and hollering in Spanish is locally produced. The owners care about the station even though it has no ratings.

Regarding DXing: I've done that for years. Decades ago, the FCC decided that ionospheric propogation is obsolete. Accordingly the rule is tiny islands of local service amid oceans of noise and interference on nearly every AM channel at night. Head 20 miles east of Tucson at night and you'll be lucky if you can hear six AM stations that are reasonably free of co-channel interference.

 

[radioman148]

>>KEVT-1210. All that yelling and hollering in Spanish is locally produced. The owners care about the station even though it has no ratinGS>>

Anything that's locally produced these days deserves applause

 

[DrAkbar]

I'd be hard pressed to name a market with more throwaways than Tucson has.

Phoenix--740, 860, 1010, 1060, 1100, 1190, 1280, 1310, 1360, 1400, 1480,
1510, 1540. If based on crappy signal alone, add 1230.

Full disclosure: I'm not adding Lumberyard 1440 to this list, due to the, let's say,
uniqueness in how it's operated. We get tons-o-chuckles on the PHX board
discussing the Lumberyard--its bizarre on-air methods, owner Gumpdusky, and
its funky lamptimer. But an objective observer would probably flag 1440 too.
It's basically a high-end of the dial daytimer, with a 52-watt night authorization
that's mostly unused.

Wikipedia has a picture of Lumberyard 14~Forty when you search "throwaway PHX AM stations"! Somehow you overlooked KMIA, that pillar of Deportes en Espanol for the gente of Black Canyon City. And to think at one time 7~Ten played the same tiresome classics as KSAZ when Dancing Dan Babich ruled the roost at 5~Eighty. YIKES!

 

[tcsnrayp]

Maybe someday--unlikely as it is--I will understand some of AKBAR(!)'s references... meantime.. what the hel* is "Lumberyard"???????

 

[landtuna]

Lamptimer, er, Lumberyard 1440 AM KAZG "Arizona's 14-in-a-row Gold Mine".

Lumberyard is taken from their transmitter location which is in, you guessed it.

 

[caveman-97]

KAZG absolutely cannot be heard from Tucson.

It would appear that soon we will be able to add either 690 or 1030 to the list of throwaways. Maybe both.

It's a shame to see KCEE drop dead as it has an interesting music mix that you won't find anywhere else. It's nothing but a jukebox but it is the second highest ranked AM in the Tucson market. There's something to be said for programming music locally rather than relying on some purported expert who is a thousand miles away.

 

[99KTKT]

First, I"ll partly take back my assertion that KGVY is a throwaway. To their credit they are live and I think their owner genuinely cares about the station. For years, KGVY catered to seniors in and around Green Valley and played music that no other station offered. They sold a lot of ads in Green Valley. Today they are trying mainstream pop which is unlikely to generate much response on AM. Much of this music is available on FM and on other AM stations as well. KGVY has permission to move its tower to the KVOI site near First and Grant and I predict that will do more harm than good. Summary: good intentions but they will probably fail. Call it an unintentional throwaway.

Personally, 1080 KGVY is the only local AM music station I ever listen to. I think they are far superior to 1030 KCEE or 1400 KTUC, both of which also have pop formats but skew way too old for me.
KGVY plays quite a bit of 70s/80/and even 90s pop (as opposed to rock or R&B) that one does NOT hear on FM or the other aforementioned AMers.
Also, it is good to hear Jim Bednarek back on the local airwaves on KGVY. Would be great if he could take over their morning slot and bring his "Breakfast Radio" show back like he had on KTUC.
Also: I thought it is KCEE rather than KGVY that is planning to swap tower sites with KVOI?

 

[oldiesfan6479]

...it is good to hear Jim Bednarek back on the local airwaves on KGVY. Would be great
if he could take over their morning slot and bring his "Breakfast Radio" show back like
he had on KTUC.

Budgetary constraints being what they are everywhere in radio, it's not
too likely that KGVY PD Tom Lang (speaking of 99/KTKT ) would take
himself off the air.

Also: I thought it is KCEE rather than KGVY that is planning to swap tower sites with KVOI?

You're mixing up formats with sticks.

1080 has a CP to change its COL to Tucson, boost power minimally, and
move its XMTR to piggyback at the existing 690 site.

The formats (and calls) on KVOI 690 Tucson and KCEE 1030 Cortaro are to
do a frequency swap as part of Jim Slone's sale of KCEE to 690/940 owner
Good News. The tower sites for 690 and 1030--no matter what the format
or call letters--remain where they are, since 1030 needs the four sticks for
its DA-2 operation.

Can we assume this will be LMAed prior to the sale being approved?

Let's see...the KCEE calls have been on 790, 96.1, 940, 1030, and will
soon be on 690. Did I miss any freqs?


Now that we're all totally confused, is there any more to the Giant 580
story? And is newcomer "99/KTKT" a former Big 99 boss jock? ;D

 

[Northwest Bobby]

I'm surprised KTUC has not picked up ABC's Real Oldies channel. Cruel 1450 is so hard to listen too, even canned jocks "live" from some where else would sound better.... ???(Now Citadel does own the ABC music networks??) ???

 

[KTKT/99]

WHO IS 99/KTKT??????

 

[Northwest Bobby]

Also, it is good to hear Jim Bednarek back on the local airwaves on KGVY.

Jim got his polyester disco suit pressed and is ready for his debut with '70s Connection this afternoon at 4pm!!

 

[99KTKT]

Also, it is good to hear Jim Bednarek back on the local airwaves on KGVY.

Jim got his polyester disco suit pressed and is ready for his debut with '70s Connection this afternoon at 4pm!!

His show was excellent, crummy AM signal and all, just as it was when it was on Mega 106.3 and on then-Cloud 95 prior to that...