WKBQ AM????

ok there is a road in garner NC named WKBQ radio station road, I know that road has changed a lot since I remember first seeing it about 15 years ago, which was a dead end road with nothing on it....looked like there was a building there but the overbrush had completly hidden whatever was there???

any info about this station.

Thinking that 1000AM is the only station that's been licensed to Garner, ever, I found

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRTG and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHEV

with a reference to WKBQ as a late 60s country-formatted sign-on.

townofwendell.com/Wendell/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=VrwcaWl83RU%3D&tabid=54&mid=451 has a mention of WKBQ at 1690, but I'm fifteen miles from there and have never heard of that before. Plus, it's not Garner.

Here is a link I found:

http://www.geocities.com/rduhistory/wrtg.html

I worked at WKBQ in the late 70s until 1981. It was a country format and had some young jocks that
went on to work at major triangle stations such as Mike Urban at wral and Wayne Michaels at G105.

ahhhh...interesting...I guess that solves that mystery

WKBQ was originally built by Edward Atsinger (A later founder of AM/FM Communications), as a 250 W directional daytimer in 1969...Larry Gardner and I did the engineering...the station could only be heard in Garner and East Raleigh, but did pretty well in the C&W Arbitrons...and you're right...they had some pretty good jox...Doug Limerick, now of ABC Radio News, worked there in 74-75 on weekends, before becoming a newsman at WKIX 850AM.

The station finally got a CP for 1kW., non-directional operation in the late 70's, but the handwriting was on the wall for AM daytimers by then. It went dark in the early 90's, when the owners couldnt even get a church to accept it as a donation.

There used to be a house out there, a little one. There was a dumpster and somebody had painted on it. Is that the place? Not exactly it, but this was near there.

Sniffthamic said:

There used to be a house out there, a little one. There was a dumpster and somebody had painted on it. Is that the place? Not exactly it, but this was near there.

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;D I always thought the dumpster was the "studio"!

WKBQ was indeed put on the air by Ed Atsinger the brother-in-law of Stu Epperson who at the time owned WKBX, WKBA, and a am in
Bakersfield Cal so who really owned the station...hmmmmmm. Ed went on to run Salem Media.

n_guy said:

WKBQ was indeed put on the air by Ed Atsinger the brother-in-law of Stu Epperson who at the time owned WKBX, WKBA, and a am in
Bakersfield Cal so who really owned the station...hmmmmmm. Ed went on to run Salem Media.

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Curley Howard always proclaimed he owned it!

Lol, All Curly ever owned was some funny looking suits, the payment book on that Mark IV, and a half gallon jug of Triple A!

n_guy said:

WKBQ was indeed put on the air by Ed Atsinger the brother-in-law of Stu Epperson who at the time owned WKBX, WKBA, and a am in
Bakersfield Cal so who really owned the station...hmmmmmm. Ed went on to run Salem Media.

Click to expand...

The Epperson/Atsinger family association became a item of interest to the Commission when AM-FM was in it's big aquisition orgy in the early 90's. Back when WKBQ was built, the 7 & 7 rule was in effect, and Stu had several stations placed in the names of various family members...WKBQ was ostensibly owned by his father-in-law, Edward Atsinger, Sr. (AKA "Pop"), and Stu had a 5kw. daytime facility in Chapel Hill (aquired by more questionable dealings), owned by a daughter. Oh, the fun of radio before deregulation.