Thursday, March 19, 2015

KAAY Off The Air Again

As reported by Doug Virden and others on the KAAY Facebook page, KAAY has been off the air again... I will investigate this further, as to the reason.  Looking back to my visit a few years ago, the transmitter site was in deplorable condition...the antenna system had just been repaired after copper thieves had vandalized it...but when Jerry Sims (God rest his soul), David B. Treadway and I were there, the transmitter was all the way DOWN...the Optimod on the back-up 5kw transmitter wouldn't even work, so we were probably preserved from any stray RF energy frying our brains any further while out on the field, looking for little Glaspie Dillard's grave.

Nonetheless, if you tune across 1090, it's not there; I'm also told that KARN, 920 AM, has also been off the air since February.  Is this a sign of the times that the owner (Cumulus) doesn't care, that they're just milking all the money they can out of these stations before they go dark?  I said it before and I'll say it again: when consolidation was allowed years ago, it was the death knell of radio as we knew it.  Of course, there have been other factors... but allowing huge conglomerate companies to monopolize the airwaves has KILLED radio....

Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)

2 comments:

  1. I ran across this article, which if not answering the KAAY - KARN questions, certainly adds some perspective, and hints about what may be going on in the corporate offices of Cumulus.

    It's the Dickey brothers.

    Dave Montgomery


    http://spectator.org/articles/55621/cumulus-media-suicide-company

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  2. Well KAAY is back on the air. The reason it has taken so long is because 500 feet of coax is not easily gotten. Just can't run down to Radio Shack and pick up 7/8 or 3 inch coax. But to get KAAY back to 50 KW will take some money. However, as we all know, doing an insurance claim for more than 250,000 dollars or more the insurance company is dragging their feet on this one.

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