The station is licensed to “Los Angeles” and the sphere of influence remains far and wide. KFI-AM is one of the last true clear channel stations at 50,000 watts that can be heard from Hawaii to Kansas; Baja to Alaska at night.
Daytime, the station can be heard in half of California, parts of Nevada, Arizona, and Baja California.
In 1922, Earle C. Anthony was the founder and owner of what eventually became 50,000 watt KFI- AM 640 radio, a station he controlled until his death in 1961. From 1929 to 1944, he also owned KECA-AM 790, now KABC. The E.C.A. in KECA standing, of course, for Earle C. Anthony.
He was an early president of the National Association of Broadcasters and, during his term, oversaw the establishment of the organization’s first paid staff. He was also a founder of one of the earliest television stations in Los Angeles, KFI-TV, channel 9, and KFI-FM, both of which were sold in 1951.
The original KFI station used a 50-watt transmitter and was made out of a crank telephone. Early on, Anthony operated the station from his garage, and later from atop his Packard automobile dealership. In its early days, it was typically on the air for only four and a half hours a day.
From the time of its inception in 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) operated two networks, The Red Network, and The Blue Network. The Red Network carried the commercial programs, while the Blue Network carried the sustaining ones (those without commercial sponsors). The red and blue designations coming from the colors of the U.S. flag. Advertisement for a live radio broadcast featuring soprano Lisa Roma , published in the Los Angeles Times on May 6, 1930
Being an NBC affiliate, Anthony operated two radio stations to carry both networks. KFI-AM, 640 kHz, carried The Red Network, and KECA-AM, 710 kHz, carried the Blue.
KFI helped to keep the calm during the dark days of the World War II by airing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats.” Later, it carried “Monitor (NBC Radio),” the network’s very successful weekend radio service.
As a side note to KFI’s participation in World War II, there is a bullet hole in the ceiling of the transmitter building, located in La Mirada, California, where a National Guardsman accidentally discharged his rifle on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The bullet hole is still there to this day, preserved as a monument to KFI’s wartime service.
The “FI” segment of its call sign was an abbreviation of “farmer’s information.”[1] Every winter evening between 1924 and 1956, KFI would deliver a frost report at 8 pm that would tell citrus farmers whether to turn on wind machines or light “smudge pots” to keep their orange and lemon groves from freezing.[2] The frost warnings moved to 7 pm until the late 1970s when they were removed from the schedule.
KFI also was one of the early FM stations in Southern California. The first FM station west of the Mississippi went on the air in Los Angeles in August 1941 from Mt. Lee. That was K45LA on the old 42-50 megacycle FM band. This was what soon became KHJ-FM and is today’s KRTH at 101.1 MHz. It was on 44.5 MHz initially but, when the old 42-50 megahertz band was needed for television, the FCC allocated 88-108 MHz as the FM band. So, KHJ-FM was moved to 99.7 in 1945 and by 1948 to 101.1 FM. Today it is known as KRTH-FM — KEARTH!
(Thanks to Paul Sakrison, David Leonard, Bill Earl, Marvin Collins.)
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This afternoon concludes my trip to San Jose. After a brief seven hour drive I hope to be back in Super Sunny Southern California! See YOU on the radio, in ((Stereo)) where available!!
