The FCC in mid-February 2022 approved Audacity sports talk station KWFN 97.3 FM’s Minor Modification application to relocate from the KOGO tower to the KGB-FM tower one mile to the northwest. KWFN plans to share an 8-bay ERI “rototiller” antenna with KGB-FM 101.5 and radiate 38 kW horizontal and vertical polarity atop the KLSD (AM) tower. 

On February 24, 2022, the FCC granted the KOGO (AM) application to move to the KGB-AM 760 kHz site at the west end of Santee. KOGO will be allowed to output 9 kW directional daytime and 10 kW directional nighttime. To keep the same radiation, the old power of 5 kW needed to be raised due to the much shorter antennas.

After the move, the KOGO towers on Vertical Bridge property will reportedly come down and the property developed for homes.

On February 11, 2022, the FCC dismissed the recent Non-commercial Educational (NCE) application for a station serving San Diego from the KGB-FM site. The group had chosen 90.3 MHz, apparently without research into its occupation by co-channel Tijuana station XHITZ and alternate channel XHTIM 90.7.

Several more of these Mexico-blind NCE applications are pending and will have to be dismissed.

The FCC in early February 2022 denied an Informal Objection by Mike Halloran to KSDS 88.3 San Diego’s license renewal, granting that renewal the same day. A rebuttal to the objection had been filed by KSDS in December 2021.

The Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association (SCTCA) filed an Informal Objection with the FCC against the non-commercial application filed by the Center for Economic Justice (CEJ) for 89.9 MHz at Warner Springs, north of Romona. In the filing, SCTCA claims that CEJ…

• is not a valid non-commercial entity under California state law
• misidentifies the transmitter site
• is not an established local applicant
• technical representatives are linked to a prior canceled NCE license (DKUMI) for Ramona, the permittee of which had an unresolved character issue 
• and the application has a “myriad of errors.”

SCTCA had filed its own application for the same NCE channel, so is considered to be a mutually exclusive applicant for 89.9 MHz covering the region of San Diego County near Warner Springs. At this stage, typically the competing applicant, CEJ, would respond to the objection to help the FCC decide on the merits of the two applicants toward awarding a construction permit for the new FM station.

Past San Diego engineer Phil Wells, 66, died quietly on December 21, 2021, of cancer at the UCSD Thornton Hospital. He is survived by his wife, Carol Hyne, stepdaughter Kat, and sister Janet Brandt.