Gold Coast Broadcasting has realigned its AM properties in Ventura County, CA.
News/Talk 1520 KVTA Port Hueneme has moved to 1590 Ventura displacing Spanish News/Talk “Radio Formula” KUNX. That shifted KUNX’s programming back to 1400, where it had been until it moved to 1590 in 2008. 1400 KKZZ Santa Paula had been simulcasting KVTA with some additional brokered Talk shows.
1520 is currently airing a loop directing KVTA listeners to 1590.
There’s a backstory to this move.
1520 is running on a STA with only 4,600 watts day and 136 watts night (a far cry from their licensed 10,000 day/1,000 night) because of damage to the ground system on one of their towers.
The original STA was filed in 2011 when they noticed a monitoring point for the daytime directional array was off, but before they could locate and repair the problem, a farmworker working on land adjacent to the tower site crossed the boundary while plowing and tore up a good chunk of the ground radials.
Gold Coast is now faced with the question of whether keeping 1520 is worth the expense of repair or if they should fell the towers and go dark.
The story continues … as of Thursday, March 28 KUNX/1520 is simulcasting the Radio Formula network programming with KKZZ/1400. I can only guess that, since 1400 doesn’t put a receivable signal into Santa Barbara, they’re simulcasting on 1520 until they have to take it silent to effect the ground system repairs (I can’t see how they’d be able to do it with the towers hot).
Or they could just be simulcasting until they decide whether to repair 1520 or just surrender the license.
The Gold Coast corporate website isn’t much help; the banner across the top lists “KKZZ 1400” and “KUNX 1520” with the rest of the cluster, but they’ve put 1400 as the frequency in the Radio Formula station logo graphic below that, and list “KUNX 1400” in the station list below the logos. Talk about your mixed signals …