• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Call Letters - KFRC

michael hagerty said:
I don't get it, Tuna. KLOK was a San Jose station. Were you thinking of KRAK (a huge country station here in the 60s, 70s and into the 80s)?
Click to expand...

No, I was thinking of KLOK but thought, apparently incorrectly, it came from the "Sackatomatoes" region. It used to filter into Marin County from time to time but never really strong and was only unique because of the "Peter Pan crocodile" ticking in the background when the DJ's were talking. I lived in Cameron Park for one year 1988-89 but can't remember what I listed to at that time. At home it was KYA via the cable.
 
michael hagerty said:
I've lived here for almost two years now, have been coming here most of my life to visit, and have never heard anyone call it Sacrapimento. Apparently, people do. If you Google "Sacrapimento", it treats it as a mistake first, but if you tell the search engine that's what you really mean, it finds 282 references. "Sacratomato" you get right away, with 36,000 references. It's just the more common nickname for the town.

The funny thing about KM's thought is that if Dr. Don had taken the KFRC calls to Sacratomato, everybody would have known what he was talking about. KFRC not only came in like a local in the glory days (before interference ate the AM dial and when world-class engineers like Phil Lerza, who knew how to maximize an audio chain, were in charge), but it showed up in the ratings fairly regularly. The big Top 40 battles were between KROY and KXOA/KNDE, but both of those stations nervously looked over their shoulder at KFRC, which was absolutely a factor...to the point of having a toll-free Sacramento request line.
Click to expand...

It was SacraTOMATO. IIRC, there was a brand of canned tomato juice available in grocery stores with the "Sacramento" brand.

Other cities mentioned in the weather report by Dr. Don were San Raquel and San Panty Jose.
 
landtuna said:


Funny! I lived in San Rafael for several years but never heard that term.
Click to expand...

Dr Don was the master of the one liner and the inversion/substitution of parts of words. His plays on area communities were famous, but missed by many who heard the airchecks from afar and did not get the fact that the communities were not actually named that way!
 
DavidEduardo said:


Dr Don was the master of the one liner and the inversion/substitution of parts of words. His plays on area communities were famous, but missed by many who heard the airchecks from afar and did not get the fact that the communities were not actually named that way!
Click to expand...

Yeah - "San Raquel" was a Dr Don-ism. Nobody else ever said it. At the time, Raquel Welch was still a pretty big star, and Dr. Don wasn't above pretty 'girl' jokes we would consider "sexist" today, so I figured it was a reference to her. But he was so wholesome of character and personality, that I doubt he would have to adjust his schtick much for today's audiences.


If you talk to people from the South Bay, it's pronounced "Sanazay" (one word). Nobody ever said "San Panty Jose", except Dr. Don either.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Sorry, but no.

Just went back and listened again to a ReelRadio aircheck of Dr. Don giving the weather in 1975. Definitely said "Sacra-tomato".
Click to expand...

Sometimes we hear what we "thought we heard" early on.

For about two years, I thought there was an apparel store called "Old Lady".

Strange name. Then I actually saw an "Old Navy" store and realized my error. Stranger name.

But we all know it was "Sacra-tomato". I used to have what I imagined to be the largest collection of Dr. Don airchecks anywhere. I'd play airchecks when I did my swimming regimen every morning in Puerto Rico and the Dr Don ones were the only ones I would repeat many times over. Amazing showmanship.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Sometimes we hear what we "thought we heard" early on.

For about two years, I thought there was an apparel store called "Old Lady".

Strange name. Then I actually saw an "Old Navy" store and realized my error. Stranger name.

But we all know it was "Sacra-tomato". I used to have what I imagined to be the largest collection of Dr. Don airchecks anywhere. I'd play airchecks when I did my swimming regimen every morning in Puerto Rico and the Dr Don ones were the only ones I would repeat many times over. Amazing showmanship.
Click to expand...

Steve Somers has been calling that city "Sacra-tomato" on WFAN New York forever. He started his career in the Bay Area, so now I finally know where he got it from. Did Dr. Don also refer to the "LA Queens" and "LA Fakers" (Kings and Lakers)?
 
CTListener said:
Steve Somers has been calling that city "Sacra-tomato" on WFAN New York forever. He started his career in the Bay Area, so now I finally know where he got it from. Did Dr. Don also refer to the "LA Queens" and "LA Fakers" (Kings and Lakers)?
Click to expand...

No. Never.

Dr. Don was never rude or insulting. He'd talk up the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A's and Warriors, but he'd never demean the other team.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Sometimes we hear what we "thought we heard" early on.

For about two years, I thought there was an apparel store called "Old Lady".

Strange name. Then I actually saw an "Old Navy" store and realized my error. Stranger name.

But we all know it was "Sacra-tomato". I used to have what I imagined to be the largest collection of Dr. Don airchecks anywhere. I'd play airchecks when I did my swimming regimen every morning in Puerto Rico and the Dr Don ones were the only ones I would repeat many times over. Amazing showmanship.
Click to expand...

I can top that. In the 70s for awhile, there were radio commercials (on KFRC and elsewhere) for a chain of fast-food restaurants in the South Bay. It had a catchy jingle which I thought was;

"It's a whole lot more
Than a hamburger store,
It's Herpes"

I knew it couldn't really be "Herpes" but needless to say, there was no internet to check it out with in the 70s, and I didn't have a San (Panty) Jose phone book...so it took me a couple of months to find out it was "Herfy's."

I just Goodled it now, and there is apparently a Herfy's to this day in Redmond, Washington. A very bad name...especially for radio.
 
CTListener said:
Steve Somers has been calling that city "Sacra-tomato" on WFAN New York forever. He started his career in the Bay Area, so now I finally know where he got it from. Did Dr. Don also refer to the "LA Queens" and "LA Fakers" (Kings and Lakers)?
Click to expand...

Steve Somers had also did Sports on KOVR Channel 13 (ABC affiliate, at the time)
 
1069_KIFR said:
Steve Somers had also did Sports on KOVR Channel 13 (ABC affiliate, at the time)
Click to expand...

But ... to try to keep that from being more than just a random additional remark: Did he use Dr. Don's "Sacratomato" on the air when he was there?
 
michael hagerty said:
I've lived here for almost two years now, have been coming here most of my life to visit, and have never heard anyone call it Sacrapimento. Apparently, people do. If you Google "Sacrapimento", it treats it as a mistake first, but if you tell the search engine that's what you really mean, it finds 282 references. "Sacratomato" you get right away, with 36,000 references. It's just the more common nickname for the town.

The funny thing about KM's thought is that if Dr. Don had taken the KFRC calls to Sacratomato, everybody would have known what he was talking about. KFRC not only came in like a local in the glory days (before interference ate the AM dial and when world-class engineers like Phil Lerza, who knew how to maximize an audio chain, were in charge), but it showed up in the ratings fairly regularly. The big Top 40 battles were between KROY and KXOA/KNDE, but both of those stations nervously looked over their shoulder at KFRC, which was absolutely a factor...to the point of having a toll-free Sacramento request line.
Click to expand...

While KFRC had a good signal in Sacramento back in the day (70's - in particular 1977), it wasn't quite as good as either KROY or KNDE. Not bad on a car radio, but inferior indoors. But overall, good enough to grab numbers in Sacramento. In 1978 they had as high as a 4.0 share in Arbitron. 1978 was after KNDE was gone, so that could have contributed to their numbers at that time.

I had a McKay-Dymek tuner with the loop antenna and wide-band audio. From the Arden area of town, a number of the airchecks I recorded of KFRC sounded local, but if the neighbors upstairs from me had their TV on, it really hurt KFRC's signal. No problem with KROY or KNDE; they were strong enough that you didn't hear it.
 
Last edited:
GeorgeJ. said:
While KFRC had a good signal in Sacramento back in the day (70's - in particular 1977), it wasn't quite as good as either KROY or KNDE. Not bad on a car radio, but inferior indoors. But overall, good enough to grab numbers in Sacramento. In 1978 they had as high as a 4.0 share in Arbitron. 1978 was after KNDE was gone, so that could have contributed to their numbers at that time.

I had a McKay-Dymek tuner with the loop antenna and wide-band audio. From the Arden area of town, a number of the airchecks I recorded of KFRC sounded local, but if the neighbors upstairs from me had their TV on, it really hurt KFRC's signal. No problem with KROY or KNDE; they were strong enough that you didn't hear it.
Click to expand...

"Like a local" may have been an exaggeration on my part...and my experience was entirely from car radios...but spread out over a few dozen trips from 1973 through 1984. Admittedly, Bob Kanner's switch to his in-house multi-band processing in early 1976 increased the station's apparent loudness, but KFRC was always (again, in the car) pretty well rock-solid from Placerville or Auburn on down, depending on whether you were on I-80 or U.S. 50.
 
michael hagerty said:
"Like a local" may have been an exaggeration on my part...and my experience was entirely from car radios...but spread out over a few dozen trips from 1973 through 1984. Admittedly, Bob Kanner's switch to his in-house multi-band processing in early 1976 increased the station's apparent loudness, but KFRC was always (again, in the car) pretty well rock-solid from Placerville or Auburn on down, depending on whether you were on I-80 or U.S. 50.
Click to expand...
I recall picking up KFRC further north than any other station, when driving on 101. It outshone KNBR by several miles!
 
semoochie said:
I know but thought the extra 45KW so close in frequency might make a difference.
Click to expand...

I get that, but it's really more about how KFRC's low frequency and towers in the marsh make a difference...turning 5,000 watts into the virtual equivalent of 50,000.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom