College Radio Day - KDVS

Today is the first College Radio Day which is being celebrated by more than 350 college and high school stations across the United States and Canada (and Jamaica!) The goal of College Radio Day is to "harness the combined listenership of hundreds of thousands of college radio listeners throughout North America and to celebrate the important contribution of college radio to America's airwaves by uniting for this one day."




KDVS is one of the participating stations in this year's College Radio Day. They're a Freeform station broadcasting from the University of California, Davis. KDVS has been a seemingly endless source of wonderfully oddball stickers over the years, many of them featuring the turntable-brained robot head which must be the station mascot.  Many more KDVS stickers can be seen here.

KRQR

KRQR was a Rock station in San Francisco, California from 1982 to 1993. 97.3 FM is currently an Adult Top-40 outlet "Alice @97.3" KLLC.

WFVA

WFVA is an Adult Standards station from (W) Fredericksburg, VirginiA.

WACF

WACF was a Variety Rock station licensed to Young Harris, Georgia. Due to the poor economy and "owing to the licensee’s financial concerns,” the station went silent last April. A new owner was found and this past August they were apparently up and running and playing older country music although an official station website could not be found.

The KGB Chicken

In 1974 a young Ted Giannoulas was hired by KGB-FM in San Diego to wear a chicken suit and give out Easter eggs at a local zoo. Over 35 years later, The Famous Chicken (aka The San Diego Chicken) is still entertaining crowds and is probably the best known and best loved mascot in sports history.

After the original gig at the zoo was up, Giannoulas offered to attend San Diego Padre games dressed in the chicken suit as an ambassador for the station. KGB agreed and for five years he dutifully attended ballgames along with various station events as The KGB Chicken.

A fallout between KGB and Giannoulas resulted in his firing and the station went to court to block him from working in a chicken costume. The California Supreme Court ruled in Giannoulas' favor and he was free to work as he pleased. In 1979, The San Diego Chicken was triumphantly hatched in front of 47,000 people at Jack Murphy Stadium complete with police escort.



The Famous Chicken has now made over 17,000 appearances and performed at over 8,500 sporting events (including more than 520 San Diego Padre games in a row.) I saw his antics myself at a Buffalo Bisons/Indianapolis Indians game a few years ago. Here he is questioning an umpire's vision.

KGB (K George Bowles--station manager of KGB-AM from 1928 to 1931) is a Classic Rock station licensed to San Diego, California. They've carried a Rock format since the early 1970s.

Around the time the KGB Chicken first started there was also a KGB-AM. A 1974 Broadcasting Yearbook lists their format as "Contemporary" although when they were known as "13K" they were Top-40. 1360 AM is currently "Xtra Sports" KLSD.

KRVL

KRVL was a Texas Country station licensed to KeRrViLle, Texas. They currently carry a Classic Rock format known as Rev-FM.

KKRW

KKRW "93.7 The Arrow" was a Classic Hits/Classic Rock station in Houston, Texas from 1993 to 2013.

Bills vs Bengals / WEBN

On Sunday we headed down to Cincinnati to watch the Buffalo Bills play the Cincinnati Bengals. Last year Buffalo was losing by three touchdowns but came back to win in a crazy 49-31 victory. This time the Bills weren't so lucky as they lost 23-20 on a gut-wrenching field goal as time expired. Despite the loss, it was a beautiful day for football and you couldn't ask for a closer game.

A shot of WEBN's remote truck located on the plaza outside Paul Brown Stadium. Unfortunately the guy manning the WEBN tent had zero promotional stuff (any stickers given away would have been plastered all over the stadium.)

WEBN handed out these Mike Brown Bags a few years ago complete with eyeholes to cut out and wear over your head in shame. Mike Brown is one of the worst owners in all of professional sports and any success the Bengals enjoy come in spite of his colossally idiotic decisions.

WEBN has been a Rock station in Cincinnati, Ohio since 1967.

KBST

"K-Best 95" KBST is a Country station licensed to Big Spring, Texas.

WBIM

WBIM is a non-commercial, campus radio station owned by Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. According to the video below, they are the only 100% student-run radio station in the state.

Minster Oktoberfest

Today we traveled about an hour north of Dayton to the small town of Minster for their annual Oktoberfest. Minster is a town of about 3,000 people but balloons to over 80,000 for this three day beer guzzling contest event. After getting our jug of beer (most people buy their brew in half-gallon milk containers) we bought some Alpine-style hats and a few pins. We saw many of these hats decorated with dozens of buttons and extravagant feathers. I now have a reason to buy souvenir pins from places I travel and I plan on covering my silly hat with them.

The next day I remembered that a radio station had sent me some pins which would be perfect for my new headgear. (Click the picture below to see them better.)

DRS-3 is a pop music station from Zürich, Switzerland. While the biggest and best known Oktoberfest in the world is in Munich, Germany, Zürich has a large one too.

Mystery Sticker #23

I have a pretty good idea that this "Cat Country 102.3" sticker is either from WCAT in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (now "Red 102.3") or WGTC in New Carlisle, Indiana (now WSMM "The Stream.")
If you know for sure, leave a comment below so I can stop worrying about it and finally get a good night's rest.

Saarländischer Rundfunk

Saarland Radio is a broadcasting network based in Saarbrücken, Germany. Along with multiple television channels, the network consists of 5 main radio outlets: SR1 "Europawelle" plays pop music and news; SR2 "Kultur Radio" plays classical and jazz music along with programs concerning politics, culture and world events; SR3 "Saar Wave" broadcasts news along with German and French music; 103.7 Our Thing plays German and English-language pop and rock; and Antenna Saar broadcasts news programming including some from Radio France International.

4BI

4BI is a Top-40/Pop/Dance station from Brisbane, Australia which began broadcasting full time in 2003. In 2005 they changed their name from "i1197" to "Switch 1197."

WMFO

WMFO is a 125-watt Freeform station from Tufts University in (W)MedFOrd, Massachusetts. WMFO first went on the air in 1970 but broadcasting at Tufts goes back more than 100 years when the university founded its "wireless society." Using the call sign 1XE, the Tufts station began operating on a daily schedule in 1921, arguably the first station in the country to do so. By the late 1960s campus radio existed in the form of WTUR, an AM station formed by a group of anti-war students. Someone had the bright idea of running a coil of wire and connecting their transmitter to some nearby commuter railroad tracks--essentially wiring the tracks as an antenna. This illegally increased their broadcast range which resulted in the FCC revoking their license.

Sticker Board #2

This is the second sticker board which was slapped together around 1997. Click it to enlarge and then tell me where the "Joy 104.9" sticker is from (bottom row in the middle) because I have no idea.

Here are the stations represented on the board from top to bottom, left to right.

KQV - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
WTIC - Hartford, Connecticut
KHEY - El Paso. Texas
WCCQ - Crest Hill, Illinois
WAAF - Westborough, Massachusetts (4 different stickers)
"Star 92.9" KMAL - Malden, Missouri
WSSL - Gray Court, South Carolina
WMWM - Salem, Massachusetts
WTAO - Carbondale, Illinois
"XL 106.7" WXXL - Orlando, Florida
"X107.5" KXTE - Pahrump, Nevada
"Thunder 94" WRLG - Nashville, Tennessee (2 different stickers)
"93.4 Rox FM" - Dunedin, New Zealand
WTRN - Tyrone, Pennsylvania
KHCB - Houston, Texas (2 different stickers)
"96X" WROX - Cape Charles, Virginia
"98 Rock" WQXM - Clearwater, Florida
WPLJ - New York, New York
"DC 101" WWDC - Washington, DC
KCMU - Seattle, Washington
WCRB - Waltham, Massachusetts
"Arrow 100.7" WWRR - Brunswick, Georgia
"Kick 92 FM" KIKY - Round Rock, Texas
WQMF - Jeffersonville, Indiana
"The Bear 100.3" CFBR - Edmonton, Alberta
Radio Dunedin - Dunedin, New Zealand
"Z104" WZEE - Madison, Wisconsin
"B97" WBWB - Bloomington, Indiana
"94.5 The Rock Alternative" WXRA - Eden, North Carolina
"Oyster Radio" WOYS - Apalachicola, Florida
"96 Rock" WKLS - Atlanta, Georgia
WRRK - Braddock, Pennsylvania
WJVL - Janesville, Wisconsin
WBZ - Boston, Massachusetts
WMJL - Marion, Kentucky
WJLS - Beckley, West Virginia
Radio CK - Bochum, Germany
WWKI - Kokomo, Indiana
"Kiss Country 101.7" WKSW - Urbana, Ohio
"Wave 102.3" WVVE - Mystic, Connecticut
"B105.9" WNMB - North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
"Oldies 92.5" WDJQ - Alliance, Ohio
WMUA - Amherst, Massachusetts
WREK - Atlanta, Georgia
WXPN - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Radio PSR - Leipzig, Germany
KBHW - International Falls, Minnesota
"Joy 104.9 FM" ?????
"KBest 95" KBZT - San Diego, California

WXLV

90.3 FM WXLV is a student and community-run Freeform station owned by Lehigh Carbon Community College and licensed to Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.