Goldmine (92.7) Question

My Genesis has a Lexicon audio system which picks up marginal FM signals very well. Traveling around the Valley I am usually tuned to 93.3 HD2 and have no issues. Similarly, when the HD signal is off the air I tune to 92.7 and the signal is excellent on that too.

Today I was driving my older 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT on Rural Road from Warner north to Southern and back south and noticed 92.7 kept fading in and out every couple of blocks. The further south I got the better the signal and conversely, the further north I went the fading and signal interference got worse. (This vehicle is new to us.)

The radio is the original OEM unit and seems to be working correctly in every other respect. The external whip antenna is properly connected and contacts are clean. On some of these older radios there used to be a DX or Local switch but I don't see anything like that on this one nor does the manual refer to a local-distant switch.

My question is - do any of you who travel this same approximate route experience the same or similar problems with 92.7? I thought someone posted last week that the translator was operating at max power and my route was almost perfectly line of sight from South Mountain.

landtuna said:

My Genesis has a Lexicon audio system which picks up marginal FM signals very well. Traveling around the Valley I am usually tuned to 93.3 HD2 and have no issues. Similarly, when the HD signal is off the air I tune to 92.7 and the signal is excellent on that too.

Today I was driving my older 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT on Rural Road from Warner north to Southern and back south and noticed 92.7 kept fading in and out every couple of blocks. The further south I got the better the signal and conversely, the further north I went the fading and signal interference got worse. (This vehicle is new to us.)

The radio is the original OEM unit and seems to be working correctly in every other respect. The external whip antenna is properly connected and contacts are clean. On some of these older radios there used to be a DX or Local switch but I don't see anything like that on this one nor does the manual refer to a local-distant switch.

My question is - do any of you who travel this same approximate route experience the same or similar problems with 92.7? I thought someone posted last week that the translator was operating at max power and my route was almost perfectly line of sight from South Mountain.

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If it was in the morning, there was a big e-skip opening to the midwestern states today. I picked up two stations: KPRS in Kansas City (103.3) and KSDR in Watertown, South Dakota (92.9).

Raymie said:

If it was in the morning, there was a big e-skip opening to the midwestern states today. I picked up two stations: KPRS in Kansas City (103.3) and KSDR in Watertown, South Dakota (92.9).

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I have noticed on some evenings the signal is good & strong, a couple of times it was very weak (in N/W valley)

For curiosity sake...
Where does this station broadcast from? (are the studios local?) Is it all automated?
Where is their tower located?

DavidEduardo said:

a station with a very dotty past.

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Dotty and pokey!

But my favorite period on Lamptimer 1440 was its "X-Rock" days. KOPA flipped 1440 to disco KXAM in 1980. (I'm assuming that's related to the demise of Disco 92, KXTC back in the day.) But disco was dead and the station flopped. So they went rock as X-Rock for a little while before returning to KOPA in 1982.

But that seemed to be how things went with daytimer AMs in the 1980s. When 92 KJJJ became KKFR (or was it KEZC EZ Country? 92.3 had a wheel of formats for years), KDKB flipped 1510 to KJ Country KJAA. If a format couldn't hack it on FM, surely it would do better than what the AM is currently doing...

But 1440, 1510, and 1310 in the early 80s did serve a purpose of delivering some form of rock/pop after the death of KRIZ and KRUX to people whose car only had an AM radio back in a time when having FM in your dash was a costly option. I don't think we got a car with an FM radio in it until 1982-83.

1310 was KZZP, a full simulcast at first when it had a waiver, then a partial simulcast until they couldn't afford to staff separate dayparts and it ran a soft AC SMN feed until the day the simulcast rule ended. Then it simulcasted KZZP again (excepting the brilliant K-Bruce stunt) up until it sold to Matt Gerson to become... KXAM. While 1310 wasn't a daytimer, if you were too far from the cemetery in Mesa it might as well have been at night.

1440 was KOPA. Then KXAM. Then KOPA. Whereas KZZP would simulcast the full morning show and part of the afternoon show when restricted by the rules, KOPA would simulcast mornings and then run the same music log on the AM about 5 minutes behind the FM. I remember them promoting it as "if you just missed your favorite song, punch over to 1440 and hear it again on KOPA-AM!")

1510 was (outside of its dalliance with Country and the new-wave/punk K-15 experiment) KDJQ, sister to KDKB. So they'd simulcast Bill & John in the morning and then run automated rock all day... except when the cart carousel would jam and they'd put KDKB back on. This continued until it sold and became business news, a format that has persisted.

And lest we forget The Rhythm of the City, 1060 K (kay-kay) Q! Until someone pointed out that if you're going to be an urban radio station, maybe KKKQ isn't such a good call sign and it became KUKQ. 1060 also had its dalliance with country before becoming the city's sole alternative outlet before The Edge.

All of this points out that Ancient Modulation has been dying for a very long time. But there are songs that when I hear them today, I can still hear the lightning strikes of a monsoon storm, because there was a time when that was the only way to hear them while driving around, even at a time when FM was king.

johndavis said:

Dotty and pokey!

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THAT brought back many good memories! Thankx!

johndavis said:

Dotty and pokey!

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It also was all CNN audio for a brief period. TV for radio...minus the pictures!

Lumberyard 14~Forty has the dubious distinction of being the last daytimer in the market. They could have gone 24 hours with their 52 watt authorization, but Gumpdusky was too cheap to buy a transmitter that could go that low. Eventually the duct tape, paperclips and bungee cords that held it together failed, and a Nautel was purchased.

johndavis said:

1310 was KZZP, a full simulcast at first when it had a waiver, then a partial simulcast until they couldn't afford to staff separate dayparts and it ran a soft AC SMN feed until the day the simulcast rule ended.

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John this was all slightly before my time but I love hearing these stories. Can you explain the simulcast rule you're referring to? I never knew there were any official rules about simulcasts, just those from Arbitron regarding how the combos are rated.

DrAkbar said:

It also was all CNN audio for a brief period. TV for radio...minus the pictures!

Lumberyard 14~Forty has the dubious distinction of being the last daytimer in the market. They could have gone 24 hours with their 52 watt authorization, but Gumpdusky was too cheap to buy a transmitter that could go that low. Eventually the duct tape, paperclips and bungee cords that held it together failed, and a Nautel was purchased.

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Don't forget those TV 10 news simulcasts back when Citicasters owned both stations. The next time CNN audio would end up on the radio was when 1360 became K-News before becoming KGME and sports...

Those mid-90's transactions were enough to make your head spin. Citicasters had KSAZ-TV and KSLX-AM/FM.
Then it gets really fuzzy.

Citicasters spins TV New World? Or did someone else have it before the New World-Fox fiasco? The radio stations go to Jacor. Jacor moves Dean & Rog from Denver to do mornings at KSLX. About a year later they do a deal where KSLX gets sold to Nationwide, who immediately swaps KSLX with Sandusky for something (maybe in Seattle?). Dean & Rog get transferred to Houston (because Gumpdusky wasn't about to pay those salaries).

And later, Nationwide, which by now has bought 96.9 from Bonneville, sells to Jacor, who merges with Chancellor and then Clear Channel... where the Phoenix properties end up in a holding company called... Citicasters.

Which is probably why there used to be a trade sheet called "Who Owns What."

johndavis said:

Don't forget those TV 10 news simulcasts back when Citicasters owned both stations. The next time CNN audio would end up on the radio was when 1360 became K-News before becoming KGME and sports...

Those mid-90's transactions were enough to make your head spin. Citicasters had KSAZ-TV and KSLX-AM/FM.
Then it gets really fuzzy.

Citicasters spins TV New World? Or did someone else have it before the New World-Fox fiasco? The radio stations go to Jacor. Jacor moves Dean & Rog from Denver to do mornings at KSLX. About a year later they do a deal where KSLX gets sold to Nationwide, who immediately swaps KSLX with Sandusky for something (maybe in Seattle?). Dean & Rog get transferred to Houston (because Gumpdusky wasn't about to pay those salaries).

And later, Nationwide, which by now has bought 96.9 from Bonneville, sells to Jacor, who merges with Chancellor and then Clear Channel... where the Phoenix properties end up in a holding company called... Citicasters.

Which is probably why there used to be a trade sheet called "Who Owns What."

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Citicasters went bankrupt; it sold four of its TVs (KSAZ, WDAF, WGHP and WBRC) which all went to New World Communications (WBRC and WGHP in blind trusts and later to Fox directly) and then dumped the radio stations on Jacor.

The swap was for KPOP-AM and KGB-FM in San Diego, occurred in 1997 and was valued at about $45 million. It was an antitrust sale, so presumably they had to divest because they had too many stations from the merger.

beauduran said:

John this was all slightly before my time but I love hearing these stories. Can you explain the simulcast rule you're referring to? I never knew there were any official rules about simulcasts, just those from Arbitron regarding how the combos are rated.

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Prior to 1986, AM stations could only simulcast a certain percentage of FM programming. The number stuck in my head was 25%.

When KZZP came on the air out of Thomas Mall, they received a waiver for the simulcast rule because there wasn't enough space for a separate studio at Thomas Mall. When they moved to 727 S. Extension in Mesa, they had to quit the simulcast. So you'd get 4 hours of morning drive and 4 hours of PM drive on AM/FM, and middays on the AM hosted by William 'Bud' LaTour and nights from Steve Ludwig on 1310. Overnights on the AM were from a cart carousel named "Fred."

When SMN came along, KZZP-AM became an affiliate until the end of the simulcast rule in 1986. The day that 24/7 simulcasting became legal, it was "KZZP-Mesa, KZZP-FM Mesa-Phoenix" until 1310 was sold.

I think the simulcast rule came into being in the late 60's, meant to foster diversity in formats and not duplicate whatever was on AM on the FM band. This, in turn, led to so many free-form AOR stations, as you had to do something different and you didn't want to compete with your big AM station. Over the years, the dominant band flipped and the AM became the less important station in the building. Although when I was at KKFR, the KFYI people liked to remind us that they paid our salaries...

But that's why when Michael Jackson was at the peak of his popularity, you had one side of the trailer in Guadalupe giving away Jacksons tickets on KUKQ while Dave Pratt was on the other end of the double wide doing the "Anti-Jackson Rap."

This might be of interest: https://books.google.com/books?id=_...AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=AM simulcast rule&f=false

Raymie said:

The swap was for KPOP-AM and KGB-FM in San Diego, occurred in 1997 and was valued at about $45 million. It was an antitrust sale, so presumably they had to divest because they had too many stations from the merger.

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There was some kind of swap where Nationwide bought KSLX and immediately traded it to Sandusky and got something else in return. This would have happened in 1996, because I was at KZZP in '96 when the deal went down and I was out of the market by '97. End result was Gumpdusky got KSLX without spending any cash. Nationwide owned KSLX long enough to sign the papers to spin it.

The San Diego stations I remember being spun off for anti-trust was KSDO and KKLQ to Univision. Plus there was that whole thing where they had to give up the Mexican LMAs later.

Nationwide's stations in San Diego were 95.7 and 94.1 if memory serves.

I want to say that the swap for KSLX was in Seattle to either get KISW or to get a station to pair up with KISW, but it's too fuzzy and too many stations changed hands during those years.

johndavis said:

There was some kind of swap where Nationwide bought KSLX and immediately traded it to Sandusky and got something else in return. This would have happened in 1996, because I was at KZZP in '96 when the deal went down and I was out of the market by '97. End result was Gumpdusky got KSLX without spending any cash. Nationwide owned KSLX long enough to sign the papers to spin it.

The San Diego stations I remember being spun off for anti-trust was KSDO and KKLQ to Univision. Plus there was that whole thing where they had to give up the Mexican LMAs later.

Nationwide's stations in San Diego were 95.7 and 94.1 if memory serves.

I want to say that the swap for KSLX was in Seattle to either get KISW or to get a station to pair up with KISW, but it's too fuzzy and too many stations changed hands during those years.

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That makes sense. Jacor sent KSLX to Nationwide late in 1996 and almost immediately traded it for...not Seattle, but Dallas.

Dated 1/6/97:

"Nationwide Communication Inc. is acquiring Dallas radio station KEGL-FM in a trade for NCI's stations KSLX-AM and FM, Phoenix. No financial details were disclosed about the transaction, which is with Sandusky Radio, current owner of the Dallas station. With the transaction, and after FCC approvals, NCI will own 17 stations in eight markets."

Apparently not long after Nationwide picked up KEGL, Howard Stern went after them on his show. KEGL promptly dropped Stern.

johndavis said:

Which is probably why there used to be a trade sheet called "Who Owns What."

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Yes indeedy! To think, at one time all three of Mother Hubbard's FM stations were paired with an Ancient Modulation station: 10~Sixty, 14~Forty, and 15~Ten. Mom's down to two now as 15~Ten was sold off many years ago. 10~Sixty brings in the cost of its own upkeep now that KIHP is diplexed from the Guadalupe transmitter site. Lumberyard 14~Forty is doing well now that it's simulcast on 92~Seven and 93~Three HD~Too.

Nurse Jeff and I smell a tsunami coming with the SeeBS/Entercom merger. They need to get bigger in Phoenix, or go home. We think they'll want to stay here because of the temperature summers, moderate politicians, and easy access to the Media Hut!

DavidEduardo said:

The FCC approved a rule in January, 1966 which would limit simulcasts to 50% of the broadcasting time of all AM / FM combos in markets with 100,000 population or more. It was to take effect on 1/1/67.

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Which in turn explains the comment in the '86 Billboard article where KQRS could simulcast its MPLS FM sister station full time because its city of license of Golden Valley, MN had only 25,000 people.

DrAkbar said:

Nurse Jeff and I smell a tsunami coming with the SeeBS/Entercom merger. They need to get bigger in Phoenix, or go home. We think they'll want to stay here because of the temperature summers, moderate politicians, and easy access to the Media Hut!

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3 full market FMs with good cashflow... why mess with it?

Bonneville isn't going to want to part with KT'R or its Sports Parking Lots, as again, it's good cashflow.

I don't see the Hubbards wanting to part with what they have going.

I <3 Debt is kinda set to do what they do.

Any of the rimshots are presumably for sale for the right price, but there's no real upside to buying one if you're Entercom.

But you've got to keep close proximity to the Media Hut, if only for that dispensary license. It's for medicinal use only, of course.

johndavis said:

3 full market FMs with good cashflow... why mess with it?

Bonneville isn't going to want to part with KT'R or its Sports Parking Lots, as again, it's good cashflow.

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Agreed, HOWEVER...

Entercom/CBS will have to dump 2 FMs in Seattle. TMISU only have one FM and 2 AMs there so that could be a carrot to dangle at them for a swap. Throw in the potential for TMISU to enter the San Francisco market with another station or two there that needs to be divested (They will have one AM, 8 full market FMs and a South Bay FM, not sure if it counts toward the cap) and perhaps a deal can be struck?

The existing CBS and Bonneville clusters combined in Phoenix would make a very nice group for David Field to be proud of.

johndavis said:

Bonneville isn't going to want to part with KT'R or its Sports Parking Lots, as again, it's good cashflow.

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True. But Hubbard & TMISU remain pals from the big sell off a while back when Ginny Morris picked up WTOP, the nation's highest billing station. Money talks, David Field trades.

Any of the rimshots are presumably for sale for the right price, but there's no real upside to buying one if you're Entercom.

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If they get their hands on KMVP, a rimshot makes a good flanker for those uppity AM Sports Parking Lots with their FM translators, or as a spillover for 98~Seven

But you've got to keep close proximity to the Media Hut, if only for that dispensary license. It's for medicinal use only, of course.

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Yes indeedy!