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From Russ Murphy

During childhood, when my family would go to the Campus Drive-In, I was allowed to wander around while waiting for sunset and the start of the show.   There was a transmitter site adjacent to the Campus Drive-In; I remember looking in the studio windows and seeing a row of 16" turntables.   Was this the site of the "Q" before the move to Santee?

During high school, a friend got his driver's license and one of the first places we visited was the Santee transmitter site. I'll never forget the moment when I stood in front of the AmpliPhase transmitter.

From Pat Michaels

For a newsman, KCBQ was a startling experience.  It was 1964 and I was hired by News Director Ed Deverill to be the morning newsman.  Even though it was an AFTRA station, I didn’t make much money and needed more.  I went to Lee Bartell, the owner, and asked if I could do a nightly talk show.  He liked the idea and I soon found myself also working a shift from 9-midnight. 

The talk show was a huge success.  Promotional “I Hate Pat Michaels” bumper stickers were all over town – the station couldn’t print them fast enough.  I’d appear at San Diego State and the students would repeatedly pack the auditorium.  I still didn’t make enough money, though, and soon also found myself working for XETV, anchoring the 6:00PM news. 

My schedule was morning hourly news until noon, rush across the street at Seventh & Ash, prepare my film and newscast for XETV, drive to Tijuana, up the mountain, do my newscast, get a taco in Tijuana and then get back to KCBQ in time for the talk show from nine to midnight.  Didn’t see very much of my wife and child and didn’t get very much sleep, but it was all fun.  I got KCBQ its first Golden Mike Award for my work, though. 

I got out of the exhausting schedule a few years later when KGO hired me away to San Francisco. 

At KGO, I could never figure out how they could pay me so much money for only working three hours a day when I’d had to work all those hours in San Diego for a lot less.  Even so, KCBQ was fun and there were great guys there like Deverill, Harry Burrell and Jack Hayes who made it all worth while.

From Judy Bowen, General Manager, KCBQ 1170 AM:

Thanks for the photos and kind memories of KCBQ.  Salem Communication purchased KCBQ in Sept. 1999 knowing that the towers would be removed in Sept. 2003, but we wanted to preserve the station and the heritage call letters.   We have NO intentions of going away.  KCBQ is still a mighty community force in San Diego at 1170 am.  We will continue to carry the legendary torch for KCBQ in San Diego.

From Red Blanchard:

My recollection of KCBQ started in 1950 when I was hired away from my first job at KPRO. Moving to San Diego!   What a huge step; from a 30,000 market to a 300,000 market!

KCBQ's owner, Charles Salik decided to let me have my own show on Saturday and Sunday nights.  This was, of course, a combo operation, and I was all alone in the studio on the top floor of 5th and Ash.   I remember telling the people that I 'was not allowed to have an audience, but if they showed up, they would not be thrown out.' So, week by week, the audience grew until the small area outside my window was pretty crowded. Downstairs, the rest of the building was populated by a now-defunct newspaper (Review-Journal?)

KCBQ's slogan was "Your Q for Quality," and was a CBS affiliate during the network's heyday.   Incidentally at that same time KSDO had their slogan "KSDO, San DieGO!"  So, naturally I would sometimes say "KCBQ San DieGOO!"  I would record many of the CBS shows on 16" transcriptions, and got a daily afternoon time slot to run "CBS Comedy Row," with excerpts from the transcriptions.   Well, that lasted a little while until the union got wind of it, and with no re-run fees being paid, the show died.  I wound up leaving KCBQ after only one year, and went on to other things....

From Erik Disen:

I was 18 years old and knew I wanted to make radio my career.  It was 1969, and Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James and the Shondells was a hit.  I am standing in front of the KCBQ RCA Ampliphase transmitter at the site in Santee watching it do its thing.  The air monitor was up loud, and the audio had that "rich in even order harmonics" sound to it.  I'll bet the Ampliphase had 5-7% THD, but it sounded good, maybe even better than the original record.  The audio processing was very gentle..."if you've got the power flaunt it," I imagined.  What I remember most is the meticulous level of maintenance of all the equipment.  Next to the Ampliphase was the nighttime transmitter, a 5 kW RCA from the '50s.  It looked brand new.  We joke about RCA Ampliphase transmitters, knowing as we do what a nightmare they were to keep on the air, but not to the KCBQ engineering team of the day.  For the life of me I cannot remember the Chief's name.  Every time I hear Crystal Blue Persuasion, I am taken back in time.  I cherish the memory.

Kent Randles writes:

When I was growing up in San Diego in the 60's, my brother listened to KGB and I listened to KCBQ.   I still have years of KCBQ "surveys," picked up once a week from the music store on Voltaire Street in Point Loma.   I spent a lot of time watching the jocks in the second-story window at 7th & Ash (they had a mirror on the ceiling so that you could see the front of the board).  On some Sundays, I was able to talk my father into driving me to various transmitter sites. We once watched a KCBQ engineer "bring up" the filaments of the 5 RCA kW transmitter and switch to it from the all-tube 50 kW RCA Ampliphase when they changed power and pattern at sunset.

In in the spring of 1965 I was in the 8th grade at Dana Junior High, and about to get my novice ham license. Everyone in my English class had to pick an occupation and write a one-page paper about it. I picked "Radio Engineer" and called and talked to an engineer at KCBQ.   He said it might not be such an attractive occupation since remote control was coming for directional AM stations, and there would be less jobs for engineers.

A year after that conversation, I had my  3rd 'Phone with Broadcast Endorsement.  4 years after that conversation, I got into radio.  13 years after that conversation, I got my First 'Phone and first "real" radio engineering job.  And 38 years after that conversation, I'm STILL a radio engineer.

So much for his advice...and I still have fond memories of listening to (and visiting) KCBQ.

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