KKHI (was WKBR)

[Scott Fybush]

> And I think I'm
> right that, when the station first moved its TX to Oakland and its COL to
> San Rafael, its calls were KKHI, long associated with the classical format
> in the Bay area--on a frequency just a little way up the dial from 1510.

The 1510 station is much older than that, and the San Rafael COL long
predates the Oakland TX. It was on the air as early as the late fifties or
early sixties (I'm at WXXI right now and away from my Broadcasting
Yearbooks at home) and was best known under the KTIM calls. It was then a
ND daytimer with 1 kw or so from a short stick in Marin County. The move
of TX to Oakland (and the power up with that rooftop DA) didn't come until
the mid-to-late nineties, at which point the calls were indeed KKHI.

(1510 long had an FM sister in San Rafael, originally on 100.9, now on
100.7; it was then KKHI-FM.)
>
> Now, isn't the owner of KMZT the rather eccentric guy who owns 1260 KSUR
> in
> Beverly Hills (or wherever) and a 540 station in Tijuana, and for many
> years
> held an unbuilt CP for a highly directional 540 in the Central Valley with
> very unusual facilities (including a COL 80-some miles from the TX)? Seems
> to me I heard that the steel for KMJ's four new 800+-ft towers east of
> Fresno was originally ordered for the 540 station.

That was Saul Levine, and he used to own 100.7 as well, though he's since
sold that off to Salem. KMZT(AM) shares its calls with Saul's KMZT-FM
105.1, LA's commercial classical station (which used to be KKGO and used
to be jazz, but I digress.)

Saul actually built the 540, which was licensed to Costa Mesa but
transmitted from Hesperia, in the high desert north of San Bernardino. It
was indeed about 80 miles from tx site to COL.

The story I've heard is that the 540 was built primarily to make Costa
Mesa eligible for an X-band facility under the "Elizabeth rule," since the
city has more than 100,000 people and no other "local" broadcast service.
Once the 540 was on the air, Saul could - and did - apply for 1650 in
Costa Mesa. It's since changed city of license to Torrance and now
diplexes on the KWKW 1330 array in south central LA, and Saul sold it for
a mint to the Koreans who now run it as KFOX. (Another LA heritage call,
by the way.)

Everything at the 540 site was sold off, including the towers, which may
well have gone to KMJ.

s