Used to listen in the late 60's. Marine Coast Station KOK Morse code on 500 Kcs would bleed through.

Living in Suburban Chicago I only was able to receive KFI once. That was exciting for a young teenager. The furthest i can receive stations from the west is KOA Denver Not the clearest but listenable. Of course we have 50 K.W. stations in Chicago and from other States. But one comes in like a local at night actually 2 of the them. KMOX and WSM. This is a Historic tour that warms my soul. Thank you. And yes visiting California many times the daytime coverage was huge.

What a fun tour! If you want to hear some great stories talk to an engineer. 😀

Would listen to KFI from Albuquerque on my Sony ICF-2010.

WoW very interesting and a pleasure to watch. 73's

The booming is VERY annoying and not needed.-could not watch anymore because of the noise-redo the video WITHOUT THE BOOMING.

THANK YOU ! WHAT A GREAT STATION !!

man what i'd do to hear an hours worth of engineering stories from these guys

Great video but bad editing between clips with the annoying sound effect transition

Love the late 90s KFI, listened to it in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 90s at night, via ionospheric skip. the signal came in clear most of the time with some fade outs, which is expected. I was surprised to see that the antenna is in the middle of an urban area, like surrounded by warehouses and stuff and the transmitter facility kinda looks like a mechanic shop... It's great that KFI actually has an EMP protected emergency transmitter AND diesel generator backup....oh yeah....is the diesel generator also EMP protected? It looks like it was just open to the sky on top, or is that the diesel fuel tank? Oh yeah, diesel fuel degrades after 1 month if not treated properly, if treated with stabilizers and biocide it can last a year. So, hopefully KFI has some people who replace all 9000 gallons of the diesel fuel on a regular basis. You know how food goes bad, gets all rotty....well diesel fuel and even gasoline goes bad, gets rotty as well. It might be better to store propane in a huge tank since propane never goes bad and run the generator off propane.

Marvin, if we look up the meaning of "Chief Engineer" in Funk & Wagnall's, your picture should be next to the definition!

Love it - thanks taking the time to make the video. 73 WA4QGA

I love the art deco features on that building. In those days, they believed in beautifying even industrial structures such as this transmitter building and the Hoover Dam.

"NX50 AM Transmitter from Nautel: Efficiency. 90% typical at 50 kW." I'm afraid the new guy has no idea, having estimated it at 80%. The old guy was right to sound unconvinced. I mean, it's obvious that this transmitter would be more efficient. Hmm...

Fascinating! I grew up with KFI…(the “FI” stood for Farm Information) they’d broadcast frost reports for the citrus growers. I remember listening to those and all their great on air talent over the years. I’m in Florida now and miss it.

I used to work at Ford Electronics on Commonwealth back in 2012 ish. One of the engineers used to come in with some of the old vacuum tubes that were used at the transmission site. I had the pleasure of touring the site then and loved the history behind it!

My sister in law use to do traffic reports for KFI, Judy Abel KFI in the sky.

Now I Know why they covered West America /CANADA 50,000watts

What a fantastic video! I grew up listing to KFI at night with a little AM transistor radio tucked under my pillow when I was supposed to be asleep on school nights. Radio was my connection to the rest of the world from the small rural farm town that I lived in. I've loved it my entire life, and getting to see the transmitter site is absolutely amazing! Thanks for making this video!!!

Very cool, thank you for doing this KFI.

Marvin, you seem bored. Maybe watch some huel howser videos and see how to make a boring topic interesting.

Vancouver just lost two AM stations, 1040 and 1410, both transmitters shut off. Owner was Bell Media. Licenses turned into CRTC. AM stations can't break even I guess, at least in Canada

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Thanks for the tour! I listen everday and pretty much get a clear signal 2 hours from LA.

HEMP: High altitude electromagnetic pulse. This is an electromagnetc pulse created by a high altitude nuclear detonation.

Many thanks. I have a hand-typed QSL letter from KFI dated August 19, 1963 when KFI studios were located at 141 Vermont Avenue, signed by C.W. Mason W6JD, the Chief Engineer at that time. The station was owned by Earle C. Anthony and the letterhead said "Since 1904." It really was a clear channel station. I picked it up pretty good from Virginia and Chicago. 73 de W9ALZ.

That 150 feet of "dead tower" was disastrous in any circumstance, a strong tropical wind could cause a total failure. When the main tower fell I read that it was sharing real estate with the paring lot of a TV facility of some kind and the new CONCRETE ring messed up the driveways in that parking lot . Very nice presentation. Ron W4BIN

Interesting presentation - and I've never seen an AM broadcast tower in the middle of buildings and city - the ones I'm familiar with are out in the middle of a huge field. Oh, one small nitpick...I could do without the dramatic sound effects between the segments. 😄

When I lived in Ohio (near Dayton) I was able to pick up KFI on many nights. There was also a Cuban radio station on the same frequency; by positioning my radio to null it out, the station that remained was KFI, which is one of the two most distant stations I ever received. This was in the late 70s until 1982 when I left Ohio and I enjoyed the music format they had at the time.

I was the foreman for John hignite and we painted the main tower and the backup tower and greased the Guy wires. John passed away some years ago but he was the go to guy for all socal broadcasters radio and t.v. I'm retired now but I still have the bowson chair I used for that job. It has white and aviation orange paint on it.

Damn cable snatchers, it's still on these days, rats, mice, and mostly in the gear where it's warm, like combiners, transmitters, etc. I hate these, because, these causing a lot of problems, at night, so you have to get up and work. But, that's part of the job. Thanks for the insights there.

I wanted to comment here as this week marks the 81st anniversary of Pearl Harbor and on the day of 81st anniversary of the impact it played on the radio station. I'm glad that the station had not trashed the history and seeing these two guys talk about the different technologies the station has transitioned to with both having open minds. It's important a station remembers their history and the mark they left in a world of mass consolidation and some types of management that's living in the moment, some making impulsive decisions for the clusters to make money. Fortunately KFI has had a great braintrust that I wished more radio stations or clusters could have. I've also made additional commentary on my site. I have seen this video before and it's cool to see.

Cool thing to see

Loved every minute of this. Marvin is a gem. I lived in LA for a while and KFI was my station. Especially in the Phil Hendrie days. I live in Colorado now and I can pick up KFI quite clearly up in the mountains at night. I also recall hearing it while vacationing in Hawaii! Thanks!

I wonder if the older transmitters are still operational as backup in case the overgrown refrigerator turns off.

fascinating ! God Bless from Ireland !

Size reduction is astonishing.

I started Dxing when I was 15 with a National NC-173, which I still have. The glow of the tubes and the faint smell of insulating material comes back. KFI would almost peg my S meter. KFI @ 640 KHz and KTNN @ 660 KHz are mainstays in the southwest US.

That guy resembles Jim Lehey

One good thing about the old tube transmitters is if there's an EMP they will still operate.

At 28:33 into the video, you mentioned drains for possible transformer oil leaks! Would this oil have been of the PCP containing type? This type of oil was a highly carcinogenic type that caused cancer with a lot of electrical workers changing leaking transformers on power poles and such! Where did those drains lead to? Just asking! Hindsight is always 2020 from those days!

What ever happened to the 1,000000 watt KUSW I remember listening to it from Calgary on shortwave! I sent them a reception report, and today I still have the KUSW bumper sticker that they sent me!

CAA said turn off tower lights in 1941 so Japanese can't find us...did they tell the city to turn its lights off as well? A whole city might have been easy to find if lit up you know... We left the lights on in the east which proved to be so useful selecting and targeting ships from U Boats that oil tanker crews at one point refused to sail. I watched a 500/1kw BC transmitter at a DA-D in the earliest 60s while doing my homework. The modulation XFMR blew up. I borrowed one from a radio amateur with a 1kW Tx and it worked fine until the replacement arrived. If I had been smart enough, I would have rewound the broken BC one.

Thank you for the tour and history of this radio station.

KFI just celebrated it's centennial: Commerce Department license number 137 was issued to Earle C. Anthony on 31 March 1922. Anthony, the Packard dealer in LA, was also a decent engineer himself. Back then, all stations shared 833khz. Once the band was spread out, Anthony nailed down 640 and stayed there. The only other station there then was WOI, the Iowa State University daytimer. For years, the NBC affiliate in LA, with battles between Anthony and RCA boss David Sarnoff, who wanted to buy it. With clear channels being broken down over the years, it doesn't mean what it once did, but KFI's position at 640 made it unique. Here in St. Louis, the former KXOK, 5kw on 630, pretty much eliminated KFI, so I only got to hear it when I went out toward Kansas City.

I hope the original transmitter made it to a museum and not the scrap yard

This was really cool, I don't live where kfi is but during the night I've been able to listen to it fades in and out but you can hear it pretty good

Marvin Collins: I worked my tail off New engineer: I don't have to do much Me: You do realize you just talked yourself right out of a job!!

Having been in radio for over 50 years, and loving the engineering side, great job on this video. So much has changed, making the job easier! It was nice seeing the progression in transmitter size, we loved the DX50’s, but Nautel came along and successfully crammed a lot into a small package. Again, a very enjoyable video!

Very informative, thank you. I used to receive KFI when I lived in New York (Queens) backj in the 50s and 60s. It really was a clear channel station then. Now I'm in South Florida where it used to be audible but now there is a local station on that frequency.