Red River Radio Network

Took a nice, relaxing canoe trip down the Red River in eastern Kentucky today. We used a hybrid canoe/kayak with very comfortable lowbacked seats. Along the way we passed a gigantic, house-sized boulder that people were jumping off and into the river. I didn't bring my camera for fear that I'd lose it or get it wet if we tipped the boat but that never happened. In fact, I ended up pushing the canoe more than once after we bottomed out in the shallow river.

The Red River Radio Network is member supported and affiliated with National Public Radio. It consists of four stations and one translator:
KDAQ 89.9 FM - Shreveport, Lousiana
KLSA 90.7 FM - Alexandria, Louisiana
KBSA 90.9 FM - El Dorado, Arkansas
KLDN 88.9 FM - Lufkin, Texas
and
K214CE 90.7 FM - Grambling, Louisiana

There are multiple Red Rivers in the United States and the RRRN is referring to the one that forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma, flows briefly into Arkansas and then into Louisiana before heading into the Mississippi River.

Get Your Kicks

There are dozens of stations out there using "Kicks" "Kix" and "Kixx" as their branding, almost every one of them with a Country format. It might have something to do with the fact that "kick" is a four letter word starting with K which fits the parameters for call letters west of the Mississippi. Plus you can play with different call letter spellings to make it look and sound like "kicks" as evidenced by the first two stickers. The station that actually has KICK as its calls is a Country station (natch) from Palmyra, Missouri. Sadly, I don't have a decal from them.

KHKX - Odessa, Texas circa 2001.

KYYX - Minot, North Dakota.

WKWS - Charleston, West Virginia. They are now known as "96.1 The Wolf," still with a Country format but with some Southern Rock mixed in.

It's Canada Day, eh!

Canada Day marks the July 1st, 1867 joining of the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and the Province of Canada (which was later divided into Ontario and Quebec.) This day also allows idiot Americans to add "eh" to the end of everything they say in order to help fulfill a secret wish that they were actually Canadian (or maybe that's just me.)

CBC Radio is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio division which operates three main networks. CBC Radio One is primarily news and information. CBC Radio 2 is music, arts and culture programming while CBC Radio 3 runs an Indie Rock format. There are also three French language divisions which run roughly the same type of programming as their English counterparts. Première Chaîne is news and information. Espace musique broadcasts music, arts and culture and Bande à part carries youth-oriented music programming.

While living in Celina, Ohio I managed to listen to the "CBC Stereo" (now CBC Radio 2) affiliate from Windsor, Ontario most Friday nights for "Brave New Waves." BNW exposed me to all kinds of great alternative music in the mid 80s and heavily influenced my musical tastes. It was quite a feat to pick up this FM station (look on a map) but I had a huge rooftop FM antenna at the time. If only I had airchecked some of those shows....

WFDD

WFDD (Wake Forest Demon Deacons) grew out of WAKE, a 5-watt pirate station operated by Wake Forest University students around 1946. By the end of the decade they had become fully licensed but had to change calls to WFDD because WAKE was already taken. In 1971 WFDD became a charter member of National Public Radio and relies on NPR for much of its programming today. They also broadcast Jazz and Classical music along with BBC News. 88.5 FM WFDD is licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

WSHP

WSHP (WrocketSHiP) is a Classic Rock station from Lafayette, Indiana and licensed to Attica, IN. Prior to this, "The Rocket" was a Modern Rock station as WGBD. Bob & Tom are a syndicated morning show heard on about 140 affiliates nationwide.

KELP AM & FM

AM 1590 & FM 89.3 KELP are Religious stations in (K) El Paso, Texas.

Bonus! Guest Contributor Post - KZOK

My buddy Dan Sys in Vancouver was kind enough to send one of his many radio stickers along with a bit of station information. Take it away Dan...

Z Rock 1590 is KZOK Seattle from 1990. At that time they split away from a KZOK 102.5 simulcast and carried the syndicated Z-Rock programming from Dallas. That lasted a few years until they became KPOZ with a "positive" Christian format. Today they are KLFE (K-LIFE) with a mixture of Russian programming and Christian Talk. Call letters and formats before the KZOK days included KQUL (Oldies), KJET (Alternative), KUUU (Oldies), KSND (Top 40), KETO (MoR) and originally signing on as KTIX back in the late 50's.

Greg here again. I remember Z Rock very well from listening to Cincinnati's affiliate which came in strong in Dayton. One of my favorite bits was when they played songs backwards or sped up and you had to guess what it was. It was the glory days of hair metal and these guys played it all. By the way, "Hey Stoopid" refers to the album by that name that Alice Cooper released in 1991.
Thanks Dan!

Dart on Map - WOXD

This time the random dart landed on Route 7 just north of Abbeville, Mississippi.

WOXD is a Classic Hits station focusing on Rock and Soul from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Bullseye 95.5 is licensed to Oxford, Mississippi, just south of Abbeville.

Obligatory Michael Jackson Post

The King of Pop died yesterday. It's one of those major, unexpected deaths that you remember where you were when you found out. Like many people, I wasn't a huge Jackson fan but could appreciate his obviously immense talent even as he descended into freakish and possibly illegal behavior. Unfortunately, that talent seemed to fade about as fast as his skin color over the years. For the past day I've been hearing MJ songs played on the radio that I haven't heard in years ("State of Shock" anybody? I think I'm the only one who likes this song) and watching him do the still-amazing Moonwalk on YouTube. So sad.

I don't have any directly King of Pop-related radio stickers so these will have to do....

Sacramento, California's KPOP FM had a variety of formats over the years including Middle-of-the-Road, Soul, Modern Rock and Top-40. Not sure when this sticker is from but I have a feeling it's from their MOR days.

KPOP AM was an Adult Standards station from San Diego, California. AM 1360 now has a Sports Talk format with the awesome call letters KLSD.

2BW

Braidwood Community Radio was?/is? located in Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia. 2BW doesn't appear to exist anymore or at least have any kind of web presence. The above sticker is circa 2004.

WLLH

WLLH (W Lowell Lawrence Haverhill) has been on the air since 1934, originally at 1370 AM and now 1400 AM.
In the 1940s Ed McMahon began his broadcasting career with a job at WLLH. He was best known as Johnny Carson's announcer and sidekick on the Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992. McMahon passed away yesterday at age 86.
In 2005 the station became an ESPN Radio affiliate. WLLH is licensed to Lowell, Massachusetts.

National Rose Day

June is National Rose Month but I'm pretty sure National Rose Day doesn't really exist. I can only find two websites that mention June 23rd as NRD--one is a highly dubious Yahoo! Answers webpage and the other is a nutrition calendar. Who cares. For the purposes of this blog, I officially declare today National Rose Day across the land.

WRJM was licensed to Geneva, Alabama. They ran a Beautiful Music (I think) format as "The Rose" before switching to News/Talk around 2002. 93.7 FM is now "Kickin' Country" WUSD.

KUER

KUER (KUtah Educational Radio) is a public radio station from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They broadcast a lot of the usual National Public Radio programming along with local news and Jazz music at night. KUER operates the largest terrestrial translator system in the United States with 33 translators broadcasting throughout Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Idaho.

KDUV

88.9 FM KDUV is a Contemporary Christian station licensed to Visalia, California.

At one time they also operated K262AD, a translator licensed to Bakersfield, CA. They still have one there although it seems to have moved to 100.1 FM.

WAYS

WAYS was an Oldies station licensed to Macon, Georgia. They eventually moved up the dial to 105.5 before leaving the FM dial altogether. 99.1 now runs a Country format as WDEN.

WYMR

WYMR was licensed to Sebring, Florida circa 1995. Anybody know what the format of this station was?

WVOX

WVOX is primarily a News/Talk station licensed to New Rochelle, New York. Almost everything heard on WVOX originates locally including shows produced by citizens and interest groups. The station lineup has been described as a "glorious hodgepodge," much of which the owner of the station can't even get excited about--everything from a travel show to Bible teaching to a weekly discussion with the mayor. There's even a thrice-weekly heavy metal show hosted by the son of the station's president.

KTRA

Current logo.

Circa 1995.

KTRA is a Country music station licensed to Farmington, New Mexico.

KEKA

790 AM KEKA went on the air in late 1979 from (K) EurEKA, California with a Middle-of-the-Road format.  Sister station 101.5 KEKA FM launched in 1983 and has been a Country station almost its entire history.  They are now branded as "Thunder Country".

KBZI? KJML? KCAR?

I was hoping to make a quick and easy post today but picked a really confusing sticker.
The Rock 107.1 website says this is from KJML although radio-locator.com doesn't have an entry for a station with those call letters. Wikipedia says KJML is licensed to Baxter Springs, Kansas but another website says the only station with that city of license is KCAR located at 104.3. KBZI-Deerfield, Missouri was supposed to move frequencies from 100.7 to 107.1 but it's unclear if that ever happened or if the calls would travel with them. I'm too lazy and tired to figure this one out.....picked a bad week to let my always-accurate 100000watts.com subscription to lapse.