In mid-February, Dean Imhof took the Chief Engineer job at Local Media San Diego. He had been freelancing there to help maintain the Mira Mesa studios of 91X, Magic 92.5, and Z90.3 FM, all Tijuana LMAs. With the purchase of KFMB 100.7 FM, management apparently justified his full-time help.

Dean said he quickly got a studio outfitted with gear from the KFMB studios in Kearny Mesa, including much of the ENCO automation system, SAS mixer, half of the SAS router, and associated hardware. He’s planning to move over to the same RCS NextGen automation the other LMSD stations use. KFMB-FM (which will have to change callsigns, by the way) uses a WorldCast Audio over IP system as a studio-to-transmitter link, just as they do for the three Tijuana stations.

With the Coronavirus emergency, he’s still working at the studios, though with fewer other staff members. Some air staff and junior promotions workers are there, but sales, traffic, accounting, and digital media are mostly working from home.

For the past two years, Dean has worked as a broadcast engineer for the Turning Point Ministries in Lakeside, but work had slowed down after an initial large build-out. He’s also known in San Diego for his technical work at KFMB Stations and at Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia).