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KQV to go off air after Dec 31

raccoonradio said:
KQV radio, the historic local “all news/all the time” AM station that has been broadcasting for nearly a century, intends to go off the air at the end of the year

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/c...rmat-Robert-W-Dickey-Jr/stories/201712150145
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Before the license is turned in, the release of this news should attract a number of groups that might like to have the station and be willing to assume things like studio or transmitter leases, etc.

Although KQV has a rather bad signal, particularly at night, it is still a lot better than some of the daytimers and lesser coverage stations and could be profitably employed in some niche format.
 
Article mentioned that KQV was one of the few all news stations to be run by a family like the Dickeys and the Scafies. Wow but the budget to run an all news operation (independent operated) was not viable according to the Dickeys.
 
Trib Live: "The station hopes to sell land in Ross Township where its transmitters sit and the license. Dickey hopes someone buys the license, revives the station and makes it another 100 years."
 
raccoonradio said:
Trib Live: "The station hopes to sell land in Ross Township where its transmitters sit and the license. Dickey hopes someone buys the license, revives the station and makes it another 100 years."
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Nobody's going to want that signal for anything but religion or leased-time ethnic,
 
This is sad but not unexpected. From what I've been told the transmitter site is in pretty bad shape and they were having trouble finding an engeneer to maintain it.
 
Sad that Pittsburgh loses its All-News station, even if its ratings are poor. (The station no longer subscribes to Nielsen/Arbitron.) KDKA still has a decent news department but like most radio stations that image themselves as the news center but are not really all-news, it doesn't do traffic and weather every ten minutes outside weekday drive times. And its newscasts are fairly short outside morning drive.

For the rest of us, it's sad a three-letter station with a K in the east is going away, call letters that have a long history and were once owned by ABC. KQV claims to pre-date KDKA as the earliest commercial radio station, going on the air in 1919. It started doing experimental broadcasts in 1919, but got its commercial license after KDKA.

WWJ Detroit, KCBS San Francisco and CFCF Montreal also have claims to being the first commercial radio station in North America, depending on how you define "first." But the history books usually list KDKA as the first commercial radio station, founded by Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh, getting its commercial license in 1921. A Westinghouse engineer had run an experimental station from his Pittsburgh garage from 1918, which prompted Westinghouse to have him put a station on the air for the company. He frequently credited a Pittsburgh music store on the air for giving him a phonograph and records, so was that the first radio commercial? And is KDKA an outgrowth of that experimental station founded in 1918?
 
KQV 1410 is Squeezed in pretty tight. They use 3 towers during the day and 5 at night. If they sell the transmitter site the license will be of no use to anyone. They have to protect WING Dayton and WHAG Hagerstown. On 1420 WHK Cleveland. and on 1400 WBBD From wheeling with a signal up to Heidelberg. The Transmitter Site would need a better access road ,
I'm Sure the neighbors would be against it. They fought to stop a turning lane on siebert road at Babcock boulevard.
 
PHIL Z said:
KQV 1410 is Squeezed in pretty tight. They use 3 towers during the day and 5 at night. If they sell the transmitter site the license will be of no use to anyone. They have to protect WING Dayton and WHAG Hagerstown. On 1420 WHK Cleveland. and on 1400 WBBD
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This is really what's killing KQV. How is it possible a station with such heritage allowed itself to get yanned into such a terrible spot on the dial? The expense of the towers, the transmitters, and the real estate is enough to put a stake in it. They've been at 1410 since 1941. You'd think at some point they'd prevent one of those stations from encroaching on their signal.
 
Perhaps one of the group owners can buy KQV, move the KQV calls to one of their AM (or FM) properties, then sell the license or the transmitter site. Not very likely.

Had KQV been on, let's say 540, this wouldn't be happening. Or if KQV was a midwest station on 1410. Western PA ground conductivity makes KQV's 5000 watts about as potent as a 500 watt station on the same frequency in the midwest.
 
TheBigA said:
That's a lot of work to get call letters that only have heritage in Pittsburgh.
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And the calls likely have no equity with anyone under about 65.
 
It is interesting to note that most of the radio stations that can trace their histories to the very earliest days of broadcasting as KQV can have much better signals. Along the way, their owners sought power increases and/or moved to better frequencies. KQV was maxed out at 5,000 watts at 1410 but why did its owners never seek a better frequency in the 1920s, 30s or 40s?

Of the five stations in North America which claim to be "first," all on the air experimentally before 1920, all of them got to 50,000 watts except KQV: KDKA 1020 50,000 watts non-directional. KCBS 740 San Francisco 50,000 watts directional at night. WWJ 950 Detroit 50,000 watts directional. CFCF Montreal had been at 600 with 5,000 watts most of its life, still a good signal, but moved to 940 with 50,000 watts (slightly directional) in its final years as CINW, when CBM moved to FM.

I guess by the time ABC bought KQV, it was too late to move it to a better frequency to upgrade its power. And none of its previous owners did it either. In some cases when the land becomes more valuable than the station, such as recently in Salt Lake City with 1320 KFNZ/KNIT, someone will come in and buy it if the FCC allows it to go to reduced power as a non-directional station, so it can diplex on another tower. In SLC, Cumulus sold the station and made a nice profit on its land, saying the license would be returned to the FCC. But new owners came in at the last minute and will operate it from a cheaper location with less power.
 
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Gregg. said:
It is interesting to note that most of the radio stations that can trace their histories to the very earliest days of broadcasting as KQV can have much better signals.
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Three very early stations come to mind. WDZ in Decatur, WEW in St Louis and WHA in Madison, remained daytimers!

A few other very early stations that never upgraded significantly:

Now dark (Original calls) KDYL-910 in SLC (910, 5/1 kw) is not, today, a viable facility. KWIZ (KFAW) in Santa Ana is a limited facility on 1480 in the large LA market, programming Vietnamese shows. KRE in Berkeley, CA remained a local Class IV after the act of 1927, never to change. Another low power stations that originated in the very early days was KGFJ in LA, a facility which is still a local channel operation.

Those are just a few examples. Stations got a chance to improve when the Federal Radio Commission reassigned frequencies in 1927, clearing the dial of many low power hobby stations, and creating the platform for the clear channel stations. A lot of stations, though, did not think that the perfectly adequate powers of 500 watts to 1000 watts then needed to cover even a large city needed further improvement.
 
DavidEduardo said:
A lot of stations, though, did not think that the perfectly adequate powers of 500 watts to 1000 watts then needed to cover even a large city needed further improvement.
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Exactly....why buy a car when a perfectly good horse can get you from one place to another.
 
If the Transmitter site is sold could the station be downgraded to 1kw non directional daytime 50 watts nighttime?
 
PHIL Z said:
If the Transmitter site is sold could the station be downgraded to 1kw non directional daytime 50 watts nighttime?
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If KQV were in the midwest with some decent ground conductivity, 1000 w day / 50 w night on 1410 might have a chance. In western PA's poor dirt, that could be a real challenge.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Three very early stations come to mind. WDZ in Decatur, WEW in St Louis and WHA in Madison, remained daytimers!

A few other very early stations that never upgraded significantly:

Now dark (Original calls) KDYL-910 in SLC (910, 5/1 kw) is not, today, a viable facility. KWIZ (KFAW) in Santa Ana is a limited facility on 1480 in the large LA market, programming Vietnamese shows. KRE in Berkeley, CA remained a local Class IV after the act of 1927, never to change. Another low power stations that originated in the very early days was KGFJ in LA, a facility which is still a local channel operation.

Those are just a few examples. Stations got a chance to improve when the Federal Radio Commission reassigned frequencies in 1927, clearing the dial of many low power hobby stations, and creating the platform for the clear channel stations. A lot of stations, though, did not think that the perfectly adequate powers of 500 watts to 1000 watts then needed to cover even a large city needed further improvement.
Click to expand...

In Portland, Oregon's second broadcast station, 7XG hit the airwaves(I guess it's really "airwave", since there was only one frequency then. :))in early 1922 and a month later switched to KYG. A year later, they turned in their license and the Portland Public Schools obtained their equipment, going on the air as KFIF, having been denied the KYG call letters because three-letter calls were no longer being offered(the first time). In 1930, the calls were changed to KBPS, where they remain to this day on 1450, still owned by the Portland Public Schools and still broadcasting from Benson High School.
 
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