The Federal Communications Commission announced a new graphic design for a seal they intend to use at a new headquarters being built.
The design was a winning entry in an internal contest, submitted by Umasankar Arumagam. The logo uses a combination of new and old elements, including a flat-top AM broadcast tower antenna design from the 1920s.
The FCC move to their new campus has been delayed, as you might guess, by the pandemic.
(Update 4/23/2020: The FCC approved the change and KFBG (FM) was using the new call letters today.)
According to RadioInsight, Local Media San Diego, recent buyers of KFMB-FM, have applied to change the station’s call letters to KFBG (FM). Garrett Michaels, who was the Program Director for KFMB-FM from 2016 to early 2017 and more recently for XETRA 91X, will program BIG-FM with a Classic Hits format of music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. 100.7 FM began using the new identity Monday but will have to wait for FCC approval on the call letters.
Historically, KFMB-FM began broadcasting in 1947 on 101.5 MHz from atop the North Park Theater, but gave up and signed-off in 1950. It started up again in 1959 on 100.7 MHz from Mt. Soledad with jazz music, then transitioned in 1960 to a beautiful music format that remained until the wildly popular B-100 personality-driven pop music format started in 1975.
Dean Imhof is the full-time chief engineer for Local Media San Diego, which includes XHTZ 90.3, XETRA 91.1, XHRM 92.5, and now KFMB-FM (soon to be KFBG (FM)) 100.7.
While not meeting in person, I’ve been talking to many of you by phone and email lately, and there’s a thread of commonality in your stories. Our healthcare workers, shippers, grocery workers, and take-out people are really on the front lines, often contacting hundreds of people a day. These people are doing heroes’ work.
Among the second tier are broadcast engineers have been busy going to work to make sure our broadcast plants still work. You’ve likely been making sure the reporters and entertainers working from home are set-up to do so. And you’ve been doing this as part of a force reduced by corporate downsizing, so things have been a bit frantic.
Our broadcast engineers are entering homes or more and getting technical stuff set-up and tested for people who otherwise may never have known more than working a laptop and phone. Sometimes this is occurring with few professional tools, so you’re making do with what you have, sometimes with mobile phone SIP apps and laptop apps like Skype. You need to make sure they interface with the devices between them and the transmitter.
Our chapter Chairman, Tony McDaid, says iHeart has the good fortune of having a stock of professional codecs to leave their work-at-home reporters and deejays, and powerful remote routing and voice-tracking capabilities that help by requiring less continuing support.
I’m grateful for having a career in high demand right now.
And I’m grateful for our fellowship and find myself while in increased isolation reflecting on how little time we spend together. I’m looking forward to fixing that.
[Updated 5/3/2020] Here’s a list of online learning and social events you can participate in during the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll try to keep this list updated, and please contact us if you hear of, or are sponsoring yourself, any similar events, even if they are quite promotional in nature. Engineers like to learn.
Continue reading Stuff to do During the PandemiciHeartMedia applied yesterday with the FCC to transfer ownership of KFMB-AM 760 kHz San Diego from Local Media San Diego for $1.2-million. The FCC had granted a transfer of ownership to LMSD from TEGNA just a month ago. iHeart has been operating KFMB-AM on a temporary local marketing agreement (LMA) since the FCC grant. The new owners will have to change the station call letters as part of the transfer agreement.
The addition of KFMB-AM to the iHeart market portfolio will put them to the upper limit of 5 FM and 3 AM stations. However, sister station KFI (AM) Los Angeles delivers a city-grade signal into the city of San Diego and shows up in market Nielsen ratings.