Through the 1980s and early 90s, John Barcroft and Ron Foo, both engineers at KGB-FM and KPOP-AM, wrote and duplicated on a company copier, the monthly newsletter for SBE Chapter 36. They competently reported some local news, paraphrased some national news of interest, and promoted local meetings. Ron composed these on early PC software.
In about 1995, I offered to help them out, leveraging my journalism degree from the University of Oregon. I began sending it out via an email ListServ offered to us by Dave Biondi, an SBE supporter who had created Broadcast.net. The internet had been available to the general public for only a couple of years after American OnLine (AOL) and Prodigy began offering connections.
SBE Chapter 36 Chairman Tony McDaid took a Systems Engineer position at KNSD “NBC7” San Diego and started work there Monday, June 28, 2022.
Tony McDaid
Tony had been an IT Engineer at iHeart Media since 2016. On his Facebook site, Tony said, “After five years it’s time to move on. I will definitely miss the fine people who work there, but I’ll still see most of them as I’m only moving next door to NBC 7, knocking a full 500 feet off my commute.”
The FCC granted the mutually exclusive application for an non-commercial educational (NCE) FM construction permit to the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association. The Warner Springs station on 89.9 MHz at Hot Springs Mountain was proposed as part of the NCE application window in November 2021.
The FCC had awarded the CP tentatively on April 19, 2022 over that proposed by The Center for Economic Justice nearby and co-channel. Mutually exclusive application rules would normally favor a Native American tribe application, but due to the size, geography, and distribution of tribal lands in northeast San Diego county, the rules didn’t strictly meet the requirements of favoritism. The SCTCA successfully argued for a waiver in the rules to gain the CP. The tentative order took effect after a comment period expired on May 19.
The FCC on May 24, 2022 granted a license that completed moving the KWFN-FM2 97.3 booster to Mt. Woodson. The 36 W ERP system uses a Shively yagi aimed at Romona, its city of license. The original, temporary booster location was on a knoll in a semi-rural residential neighborhood at the base of Mt. Woodson.
KWFN “The Fan” continues to broadcast San Diego Padres games. The Audacy station uses carefully synchronized boosters to fill in coverage shadows and even support the extension of their HD signal. GEO Broadcast Solutions is the booster system contractor.
According to Insideradio.com, Grupo Cadena of Baja California Norte, Mexico has taken four of its stations to online streaming only. Spanish news/talk stations XEBG 1550 and XESPN 800 Tijuana and XEMBC 1190 Mexicali, moved to CadenaNoticias.com. Spanish rock XHMORE 98.9 “More FM” Tijuana moved to “More-FM Online.” We confirmed the stations are off-the-air as of the time this article was written.
The cited article says the move may not be permanent. According to AFN Tijuana, talks between the station and unions that represent some of its employees were unsuccessful in preventing the signals from going dark.
