Northwest Radio History

Found some very interesting reading out here on Vashon. I have updated a website I post to with some new interesting stuff. Most interesting are the two documents I found about KIRO pursuing a purchase of KVI in 1939. What's really interesting is that I found the transmitter move cost document in a Jim Hatfield senior file at the KEVR/1090 site and the actual manager notes just last weeks ago (almost 2 years from when I found the transmitter move document). I attribute this to Jim Hatfield Senior working at kiro during the time he built their 50KW site and then being hired by KEVR to build theirs. He obviously hung onto the document when he went to KEVR.


Go to http://nwradiohistory.com/

Click on the links and enjoy. If you wondered how KOMO and KJR split things up when they separated way back then it's there to. As well and KOMO FM history notes.

Must read for new people to Seattle radio.

Interesting! I'll have to take a look at some of that when I have the time. While we're on the topic of NW history, here's an extensive history of KPQ-AM. http://web.archive.org/web/200012041538/http://www.kpq.com/history.htm

Yes the KOMO-FM tower still exists as the top of the KOMO TV tower on Queen Anne Hill.

The letter that started KING.
http://nwradiohistory.com/wp-content/pdf/kevr/kevr-king.pdf

First License
http://nwradiohistory.com/wp-content/pdf/kevr/king_lisence1.pdf

Any one know how much Dorothy paid for those calls?

Legend says she paid the captain of the S.S. Watertown a case of rum and $20,000 to his church. He didn't care about money. To him, the KING call letters were nothing but Morse code dots and dashes. And the Watertown was an old ship at the end of it's functional life and it was about to be scrapped anyway.

But I was asked a question once about the S.S. Watertown itself. Seems like there's a creepy urban legend going around the interwebs about a similar ship, also called the S.S. Watertown.

http://www.delcoghosts.com/ss_watertown.html

And as eerily as it may sound, they could very well be the same ship. The Watertown was a fairly new ship when this incident with the crewmen happened and was about to be decommissioned shortly after Dorothy Bullitt acquired the KING call letters. Most ship hulls only last about 20-30 years. So it puts it in the same time frame.

Okay I've got a KING-related ghost story just in time for Halloween for you: Back when they were building the Dexter-side addition to the original moving warehouse portion of KING Broadcasting HQ, a portable crane slipped over the edge of the basement foundation, causing the crane to fall almost into the basement. A construction worker was killed when he was knocked into the basement and crushed by the crane. After the building was completed, there were unexplained reports of items being moved around the studios downstairs at night and some reports of staff and crew seeing someone walking between studios, but nobody was actually there.

Looks like Dorothy made a good investment in those calls. After KING moves out of their old haunted building, those downstairs studios would make a great haunted house.

I sometimes get spooked at the KIRO transmitter plant. No one died there that I know of. Bill Rueter who passed a few years back worked at KIRO when they moved the transmitter to Vashon. His family scattered some of his ashes at the SE tower. There is a picture from 1941 of him standing on top of that tower looking down at the ground.

I often think of Arne Skoog who was a CBS engineer for 1090, he passed from cancer while still doing engineering duties from his hospital bed. Very dedicated engineer and a great lose to the Seattle engineering community. Jim Hatfield Senior, Arne Skoog, Bill Rueter and Ken Cole are the engineers I think of when I'm at the 710 and 1090/770 transmitter site. I like to think they watch over me and keep me safe when I have to work on the equipment after midnight by myself. I do the best I can to maintain those sites in their memory.

Have not seen any floating heads, but Jim Tharp spooked me real good at the KIRO plant when I didn't hear him enter the building one day.

Except as soon as KING leaves the original building and just 34 year old addition, it will be torn down for guess what, another apartment building. A huge part of Seattle's broadcast history to soon be gone.

BTW, I toured the old downstairs studios twice while in High School (70's). Even, then it seemed like a very compact area. But what was really cool was the control decks were elevated looking down on the studio. Anyone know if the original configuration is still in place down there? I would imagine it is a storage area today.

One of the two studios was converted to an employee gym. I think the mezzanine that housed the original control rooms is still a landing for the staircase; but I don't remember if that staircase was pulled when the building remodeled. Been a long time!

If you look at the first license KING got under those calls (the link is above) for the AM on 1090 they were in the Smith Tower.

I actually got into a taping of Seattle Today, must have been 79 or 80. Skipped a day of high school with the goal of getting a tour of the place and got into the audience for the show. I mostly wanted to see the 1090 studio. It was when they were testing stereo and the board looked like a gates yard with a Ramko stereo board on top of that. Small room if I remember right.

That was a Gates President which will always be my favorite board, ever. Not only did that thing put up with levels of abuse that would kill a modern console, it was the perfect Top 40 board, before we added the Ramko for stereo music which was on your right hand and impossible to easily duck music when talking up to vocals. The Ramko was connected to the right bank of ITC stereo cart machines. Spots and jingles were played from the left bank of Gates cart machines. Both consoles fed a summing amp, so there was a stereo feed to Vashon and the lovely Kahn AM stereo setup.

Gates President that was it. Yes I agree what a board, when I find one I'm adding it to my collection. Already have an Gates/Harris Executive and thinking of getting a Diplomat because it's available. The best part of my console collecting phase is no significant other saying I can't get that board and a big 50KW plant to display them in. I think KIRO am in the early news days used a Gates Ambassador. The VU meter from that board is at the 710 transmitter site.

Don't know what I'm going to do if I start to collect Automation systems and parts. I can already see 100 feet of racks with some of the best automation brains and their carousels, well maybe not the best but probably memorable.

I may still have an SMC Carousel and an IGM Instacart, if you want to add those to your automation collection. Most of my broadcast cart machine/boat anchor collection is stored at my other home on Lake Cushman near Hoodsport, WA.

So the Gates President from KING isn't in the junk pile out at 1090's transmitter site? Guess someone probably dumped it. That would be a shame. Wonderful board. Jim may remember what happened to it.

I wish they had kept the former KING production board, an Auditronics Grandson. I'd like to pick one of those up.
Some guy was parting a Grandson out on FleaBay, but was selling the motherboard/tub/meter bridge and each module separately.

On an only SLIGHTLY related tangent...when I did walkthrough @ KVOS as they were gutting the place...their Grass Valley switcher was sitting on the floor. Apparently it was being passed to the new building owners....a real estate company renovating the building for use by doctors, etc. Not sure what THEY will do with a TV switcher....so I bet it wound up in a dump heap as well.

LITTLEBOYBLUE said:

On an only SLIGHTLY related tangent...when I did walkthrough @ KVOS as they were gutting the place...their Grass Valley switcher was sitting on the floor. Apparently it was being passed to the new building owners....a real estate company renovating the building for use by doctors, etc. Not sure what THEY will do with a TV switcher....so I bet it wound up in a dump heap as well.

Click to expand...

I went by the KVOS building recently. It's in a sad, abandoned state.