I smile when I see those old Class IV stations (1230, 1240, 1400, 1450,
1340, and 1490), During the 1960s and early 70s most of them were rockers or
top 40. These formats take a LOT of skill in production and air in order to
sound halfway decent.

There were a few in the Bay Area that did this, KOMY Watsonville, KTOB
Petaluma, etc., but these were stations in the midst of hefty metros. Even
running 1kw, these stations still reached good-sized metro audiences. But
hot about KATA?

The other week when I was up in the Eureka/Arcata area I drove past the KATA
transmitter. Long abandoned for studio use, it's just a graffiti-strewn
transmitter site. I remember the day when it was a stand-alone running
top-40.

Well, lo and behold, I found an aircheck from KATA from 1970, and sure
enough, they had TIGHT production and TIGHT on-air presentation.

KATA was located in a college town of 8,000 (at the time), in a metro of no
more than about 20,000, and its 1,000 watt signal couldn't have covered all
of it, BUT YET KATA put out a VERY professional sound.

For your amusement, here's an aircheck from KATA:
http://radiodiscjockey.homestead.com...KATA-17min.mp3



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