Just a little background to clear up some questions about the old KDON AM xmtr site outside Watsonville. Firstly, the reason a Salinas COL was located there was due to the fact that originally when Grant Wrathall Sr. built the 1460 AM facility, the station was KRUZ Santa Cruz. It was a 1kW DA-1 U signal. The station COL was changed to Salinas in 1951 when the power was raised to 5kW. The calls were changed to KDON. Originally, the transmitter site was owned by the family which also operated a race track at the beach (Ocean Speedway). Sometime in the 1960's the racetrack was abandoned and the land was sold to the State of California. The radio station then operated via series of 5-year leases through the CA state park department. In the mid-1980's the state parks department informed the owners of KDON that the 1985-1990 lease would be the last one and that the radio station would be evicted once the final lease ran out.
1460 stayed on the air via a 10W xmtr operating into a rooftop antenna at the KDON studios on South Main Street in Salinas. The antenna was a base-loaded coffee can with a twenty-foot tv antenna mast on the roof. The station covered just a few blocks but it kept the license alive until a new site was developed NE of Salinas in the Boronda area - this is the four-tower site that was built for 980 AM and 1460 joined the site in 1999. The station currently operates on a DA1 at 10kW, however, when KDON lost its Palm Beach antenna it also lost all of the signal protections that it had from 1951 upgrade. Both Inglewood (1460) and Las Vegas (1460) improved their facilities and when Salinas came back on the air they had to offer additional protections to those stations. That's why the current 10kW is much poorer than the original 5kW signal at Palm Beach.
BTW, there was a proposal to build an multi station antenna site north of Pinto Lake in Watsonville by Larry Wrathall (son of Grant Sr. and current owner of the 540, 1200, 1570 site in Salinas). The proposed site would've housed 1080, 1340, 1460 and 1540. Unfortunately, only 1460 was interested in pursuing the project and the cost to develop site was too much for one station to bear so the project never happened. It's too bad because that would've resulted in a very good site for those four broadcasters.
1460 stayed on the air via a 10W xmtr operating into a rooftop antenna at the KDON studios on South Main Street in Salinas. The antenna was a base-loaded coffee can with a twenty-foot tv antenna mast on the roof. The station covered just a few blocks but it kept the license alive until a new site was developed NE of Salinas in the Boronda area - this is the four-tower site that was built for 980 AM and 1460 joined the site in 1999. The station currently operates on a DA1 at 10kW, however, when KDON lost its Palm Beach antenna it also lost all of the signal protections that it had from 1951 upgrade. Both Inglewood (1460) and Las Vegas (1460) improved their facilities and when Salinas came back on the air they had to offer additional protections to those stations. That's why the current 10kW is much poorer than the original 5kW signal at Palm Beach.
BTW, there was a proposal to build an multi station antenna site north of Pinto Lake in Watsonville by Larry Wrathall (son of Grant Sr. and current owner of the 540, 1200, 1570 site in Salinas). The proposed site would've housed 1080, 1340, 1460 and 1540. Unfortunately, only 1460 was interested in pursuing the project and the cost to develop site was too much for one station to bear so the project never happened. It's too bad because that would've resulted in a very good site for those four broadcasters.