KBUX a interesting station

A very interesting station a few years back.

The original website:

http://kbuxradio.tripod.com/


And a article:

http://kbuxradio.tripod.com/loweroad.htm


Do you remember any stations that were run like true mom and pop stations like this one. In a house, garage, etc. (FCC licensed)

I visited KBUX about 10 years ago but spoke with Buck, the guy that started KBUX several times. Buck had been a cab driver in New York City before his new life in radio along the California/Arizona border began.

The station, up until that time, never made any money. While they could sell advertising during the 'snowbird' season, they had zero to 1 sponsor on the air from the end of March until the end of October. I recall Buck said a local business sponsored the local weather forecast at, I think, 8 am after the winter season. Buck had to call to get the weather forecast back then.

Originally Buck gathered records from locals, recorded tracks on reel to reel, announcing each song and adding a legal ID every third song. Commercials were manually inserted at the time. The station operated 6am to 10pm then. They had a couple of folks that would watch the station a few hours so they could sneak away to shop, grab a meal and such a couple of times a week. The station ran from a bedroom in their home with an 80 foot wood pole for an antenna in their yard.

To my recollection, the station ran the weather forecast 3 times a day, aired whatever PSAs were dropped off for the station a couple of times a day, had a weekday 5 minute devotional from a pastor their knew and they ran the 15 minute Salvation Army weekly program on Sunday morning. Aside from this, the reels ran non-stop except to manually air a commercial. Maude did a weekly live show with various thoughts, quips and words of wisdom added at several points in the two hour show. I heard that show and it was really well done but I suspect they used the show to cram in the day's commercials so they didn't always have to periodically stop the music to manually play a spot (they had no automation).

When I visited, the current owner was buying the station. At the time I visited, it was summer. The format then was computer driven lite rock oldies with an ID every quarter hour. In about 6 hours of listening, I heard one PSA. They had been running commercial free since the snowbirds left. I think the new owner had rounded up some a few ad dollars from a car dealer in the next town by then.

I'm guessing, from what Buck told me, they billed about $15,000 to maybe $20,000 a year. A good 90-100% of that billing was aired November through March. I think their rate was about $6 a spot in winter and $3 in the off season.

I have not heard the station since Marvin took over the station but having met him, he was a nice guy and one that wanted to serve his community. So, I'm confident it's a great local station just as it has always been. It seems Quartzsite has always liked their little station.

Groove1670 said:

A very interesting station a few years back.

The original website:

http://kbuxradio.tripod.com/


And a article:

http://kbuxradio.tripod.com/loweroad.htm


Do you remember any stations that were run like true mom and pop stations like this one. In a house, garage, etc. (FCC licensed)

Click to expand...

WVCA Gloucester, MA. Run by Simon Geller out of his home, and he was the lone air personality. The format was classical music, mostly from reel-to-reel tapes (this was back in the '70s).

Simon Geller's WVCA is really interesting. I was curious enough about the station to phone him in 1980. What he told me is different that what is on the website dedicated to WVCA and their quest to restore the reels of music he aired.

In 1980 he was embroiled in a fight with the FCC. They claimed he did not serve the interests of the community, a claim he disputed. He said, if anything, the operation of WVCA was textbook perfect in the what the FCC wanted from owners: locally owned, operated and interactive with the community on a daily basis. As he put it, every minute of his broadcast day was a public service for his community.

Mr. Geller claimed to broadcast 5:30 am to Midnight each day. He had a public affairs show from 5:30 to 6 each morning to satisfy the FCC. The truth was it was a weekly university produced show he simply played every morning. Back then at least 6% of programming had to be non-entertainment and at least some had to be public affairs. By airing the program daily, he could list his station as being about 2% Public Affairs. Ironically, less than a year later the FCC would do away with those requirements.

Simon was eclectic. He was known to take 'bathroom breaks' where the listener might hear the toilet flush. He was known to sign off to go run errands. WVCA was far from typical. In fact, Geller chose the classical format with a local person donated all their music collection to the station.

In 1980 the station survived off donations. He mentioned he had received $1,000. He did not say if that was his monthly 'income' but it was his response to me asking how well the station did. $1,000 was pretty significant then. I was working full time at a small market station for $540 a month back then.

The website devoted to WVCA is making some of the tapes available for listening along with short clips such as IDs. There are photos too.

WVCA might just be one of the most eclectic stations ever, run from the home of Simon Geller.

Thanks for sharing. Here is a article on Geller. In 1990 a short film, Radio Fishtown, directed by Henry Ferrini, was made about Geller's life and career

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/15/us/crusty-voice-quitting-after-24-years.html


I know there was another station that was run by a single operator. I don't remember his name, but when he got sick family and friends cleaned up the studios (they said there were stack of records and tapes) so he would be more comfortable when he returned. I don't know if he ever got well to return.

I once had a book by Peter Hunn that started an FM in New York State decades ago. He and his wife lived in and operated the station from a 'converted' garage kit from a lumber store. This was prior to computers. In the book he explained he selected a format, played records, typed commercials on index cards and operated 'bare bones' for three years or more before the 'confinement' finally got to them. He later sold the station. If I understand things correctly he dabbled in ownership over the years and taught broadcasting.

If I recall correctly, Bob Rule is the sole owner and operator of KPIN in Pinedale, Wyoming. Being the only station on the dial, he has everyone listening. He operates from a 'shopping mall' of sorts. With the extreme weather, I have noted in my travel in such areas, a builder will erect a building that can contain several retail shops and a few 'business offices' with an indoor hallway in the center as well as an outside entrance to these businesses. Bob rents a 10 by 10 office that opens to the hallway. The station is in that room. When I visited, he had a short tower at a motel (traded for a few spots each day) and connected to a dedicated phone line to the studio.

At that time he kept a single employee on the payroll. I suppose that it became difficult to find a person he could trust, so he simply ran it himself. The station is computer driven.

In such a small town where you can know everyone in your 60 dbu by name, advertisers are quite familiar with the station. In fact, many have learned how to produce their own commercial. So, if Bob isn't around, and the client knows how to do their own spot, they known where the spare key can be found so they can simply go in and do the spot. This is no cash cow by any means, just a really small town radio station that gets by because the owner is a one man show.

KPIN offers state, national and international news via a subscription and computer connection, offers local news, local road conditions, weather reports on the half hour and a daily buy, sell and trade show. When I visited the music was a mix of adult contemporary oldies and country, leaning heavily on the AC side. The computer hard drive was so small, the station played only about a 12 hour music library. I suspect with mp3 and cheap hard drives these days, the music has expanded greatly. With his basic package for advertising and the number of spots I heard, I'm guessing he had about 2 dozen advertisers in the early years, say 2001 or 2002.

The big problem for the station was finding a way to tap out of town ad dollars (you have to travel to bigger towns for some things). The problem is, it is about 90 minutes to 2 hours each way at the posted speed limit to get there. It seems Pinedale does lots of retail trade, however. There are two weekly papers that are really quite large. In fact, they'd almost rival a big city weekday paper in number of pages and certainly more space sold in advertising. If I recall, my June visit in about 2001 or 2002, the weekly was about 32 full size pages in color too. Granted, tourists are a factor in the community, but still, that's a big paper for a town of about 1,400 back then.

A link: http://www.pinedaleonline.com/kpin/

The one person or husband and wife team running a station is pretty rare but I suspect it is becoming more common.

Here is another interesting station KBRD AM

Courtesy of wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBRD

b-turner said:

Simon Geller's WVCA is really interesting. I was curious enough about the station to phone him in 1980. What he told me is different that what is on the website dedicated to WVCA and their quest to restore the reels of music he aired.

Simon was eclectic. He was known to take 'bathroom breaks' where the listener might hear the toilet flush. He was known to sign off to go run errands. WVCA was far from typical. In fact, Geller chose the classical format with a local person donated all their music collection to the station.

WVCA might just be one of the most eclectic stations ever, run from the home of Simon Geller.

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That's not eclectic in any sense of the word. Simon played classical music, period. Anything else he put on the air was spoken-word filler designed to placate the FCC. Would you call a CHR station "eclectic" just because it left the air at odd times so its owner could run errands and ran public affairs shows in fringe hours? Of course not.

KNIX started out as a Mom and Pop station. When I first moved to Phoenix in 1958, I listened to it, because it had very few commercials. I remember listening one Sunday night to over an hour of pipe organ music. Right in the middle, the music was turned down, and a rusty female voice announced "you are listening to KNIX Phoenix." Then the music was turned up and continued uninterrupted for more than hour. I did record all of it on reel to reel tape, but I think it was left behind when I had to move. The station was operated out of a house or garage on Coolidge, just east of 7th Ave. It had an antenna on a tall pole in the backyard.

KBUX

Bill Taylor in Globe was sort of a one man operation. I had to opportunity to meet him several times and get acquainted. I remember him telling about buying Panasonic HI-FI VCR's at Walmart in Miami. At 10 in the morning, he would set them to record his daily programming. Between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. he had to be careful not to say anything time related, such as "sure a bright sun today," because at 10 p.m. he would rewind the tape, and play it from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when he slept. The VCR's were in use 16 hours a day, and would last about a year before failing. At that point he would return it to Walmart and request a replacement as it didn't last a year. I think I tagged along on one of those trips to Walmart, as he had to get a replacement if he wanted to sleep that night.

Bill was an interesting character. His pride and joy was the signal he put out. The walls of the studio, a bedroom in his house, were lined with racks of cartridges, with music and commercials. And he had an elaborate card system for a play list. The card told how far back to place it in the stack before it would be played again. How computers have changed everything.

phil said:

Bill Taylor in Globe was sort of a one man operation. I had to opportunity to meet him several times and get acquainted. I remember him telling about buying Panasonic HI-FI VCR's at Walmart in Miami. At 10 in the morning, he would set them to record his daily programming. Between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. he had to be careful not to say anything time related, such as "sure a bright sun today," because at 10 p.m. he would rewind the tape, and play it from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when he slept. The VCR's were in use 16 hours a day, and would last about a year before failing. At that point he would return it to Walmart and request a replacement as it didn't last a year. I think I tagged along on one of those trips to Walmart, as he had to get a replacement if he wanted to sleep that night.

Bill was an interesting character. His pride and joy was the signal he put out. The walls of the studio, a bedroom in his house, were lined with racks of cartridges, with music and commercials. And he had an elaborate card system for a play list. The card told how far back to place it in the stack before it would be played again. How computers have changed everything.

Click to expand...

KBUX-FM now also owns KCNL-FM 105.9.