As it turned out, when KLZR went to a modern rock format in 1993, it actually did start selling into Kansas City. It could have done even better with the old location in south Lawrence, I believe.
Far as I can remember, 105.9 was always a mediocre performer in Topeka. Before it went to the modern rock format, it was mostly running satellite CHR/Hot AC. The local drop-ins it had usually just said, "Locked in to 105.9," and the top of the hour ID made no mention of KC. I don't think it ever got great numbers in KC with the modern rock format, but it had a loyal audience and even sponsored a few concerts in the KC area. It also had a local request line in KC. Ironically, it was a Independence phone number.
The KBEQ (Q-104) signal really got out. Putting that station on the KCPT tower, also in the general Blue Summit area, was a smart move, and helped it compete with what were then the legacy radio/TV combinations that had access to tower heights just under or even over 1,000 feet: KYYS, KCMO-FM/KCEZ/KCPW, KMBR/KLTH.
Q104 got out quite well. You could hear it until it started getting interference from KMYZ-FM out of Tulsa. My grandparents used to live on a hill on the Rogers/Mayes County line along OK-28, and I could get 93.3, 94.9, 98.1, 100.7/101.1, and 102.1 from KC at their house until new stations started signing on and/or upgrading. I remember being a freshman in high school and disappointed to find an oldies station on 94.9. I figured Oldies 95 was a new station and was even more disappointed to find Power 95 was gone a few months later. When I went to college in Arkansas, I could still get a couple of KC FM's. Lite 99.7 FM was receivable on the home stereo until KBTN-FM signed in '95. After Leroy Billy bought KBSY/KOMS 107.3, it started signing off at 10:00 PM, and KISF would start booming in. Those were about it, though. From the summer of '89 to January '94, there were a lot of upgrades and sign-ons between KC and Tulsa. I found the 94.9 out of Prairie Grove, AR signed off at 10:00 PM, but Oldies 95 was a very rare catch. 94.9 usually just had splatter from KTTS-FM 94.7 and KMXL 95.1, which was an upgrade itself of the old KRGK 104.9 a few years earlier.
One wonders if the capital expenditure was worth it.
From Cumulus's standpoint, it probably was because the physical plant of KMAJ-FM was never moved, and all the moves had just occurred on paper. 107.3 has a slightly better signal in the KC area than it did before all of the changes. I doubt Cumulus would've gone through all the effort if it had known it was going to end up with Susquehanna, but, since it had already planned the moves, it got something for them. As you know, I was working for the company when all of this started. I had been talking to some of the engineers about all of this, and we had tried to see if there would be some way to get 107.7 on one of the towers near the Sports Complex. We believed KOQL 106.1 could be moved on paper to Otterville to replace KCVK, but moving KCVK much further east wasn't going to be easy. KRLK 107.7 didn't have much more wiggle room either. It couldn't easily be moved into Springfield because of the 107.5 in Mountain Home and KCLQ 107.9, which also kept it from moving very far to the east. We would still have had the problem of moving KMJK 107.3 further out of the metro. I don't know if anyone ever found a way to make all of the moves necessary. The IT position that I was supposed to be moving into got redlined before the sale to Cumulus, and, after a similar position opened a few months later, they offered it to someone else. So, I didn't spend much additional time discussing that potential project. That ship had sailed, and I had concluded I was never going to be boarding. I would, however, think they would've gone ahead with the KMAJ-FM move if they had found a viable way to get it on one of those candleabras at 435 and 70.
I would have downgraded it to a C2 and stuck it on the old KCKN-FM tower in Kansas City, Kansas. Sure, that's fantasyland, but even though that tower was a 500-footer, it also seemed to be a better than average site, with the KCKN-FM (later KFKF) signal getting out really well (this was before the move to the KLSI/KMXV tower near the Raytown-KC border). In any event, I agree, Copsidas figured out that Kansas City was the market to target. There was a proposal at one time involving a downgrade of KWWR in Mexico, Mo. (transmitter north of Centralia) that could have given the Ottawa (KC) 95.7 more room to maneuver but that didn't end up happening.
I know there was talk of downgrading 95.7 and moving it closer to the metro, but it didn't happen for several reasons. Not sure what all of them were, but I know it had maintain a minimum separation from 106.5 due to the 10.6 spacing rule. That was part of it. It also was going to have to find a new COL as it wasn't going to cover Ottawa from there, though I'm sure it could've found somewhere that needed a radio station on paper. I think we've talked about it before, but KWWR's move to accommodate 95.5's move to St. Louis from Bethalto likely made KCHZ's move closer to KC tougher, too. Seems like it moved a few miles west.
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