WKFB

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WKFB
City of license	Jeannette, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Branding	770 KFB
Slogan	We Are Oldies Proud
First air date	January 28, 1974
Frequency	770 (kHz)
Format	Oldies, Talk
ERP	750 watts (daytime)
Class	D
Owner	Broadcast Communications, Inc.
Website	none

WKFB is an AM radio station, licensed to Jeannette, Pennsylvania, which serves the greater Pittsburgh area. Known as 770 KFB, the station operates with 750 watts, daytime only, and airs a mix of health talk and paid programming, with oldies at various times throughout the day and on weekends. The radio station is home to several Pittsburgh oldies personalities, including "Caveman" Ralph, Candy and Mike, and Frankie Day.

WKFB is co-owned with WKHB (620), also near Pittsburgh.

In late 2005, veteran Pittsburgh radio personality/programmer Clarke Ingram was named Program Director of WKFB and WKHB, and was promoted to Operations Manager in August 2006. In January of 2006, WKFB announced the arrival of legendary Pittsburgh oldies DJ Porky Chedwick for a regular weekend program. (Chedwick was not an employee, but was operating under a brokered-time agreement.) Citing differences with Frankie Day, who was paying for the airtime, Chedwick left the station in May 2006.

WKFB is also the flagship station for Duquesne University football games, which air on Saturday afternoon in season.

[edit] History

For many years this station was WBCW (1530), later WKTW. The station originally operated at 1530 khz with a daytime-only power of 1,000 watts, with 250 watts during critical hours. WBCW was founded by broadcast engineer Albert Calisti, who first put it on the air back in 1974. Very much a family business, Calisti did engineering and hosted a provocative and often amusing local talk show, his wife Verna kept the books and sold airtime, and their daughter Jacqueline Rae served as program director. The station only had one employee outside of the Calisti family: Clair Thomas, who served as the station's news director. The Calistis maintained ownership of the station with a primary local and syndicated talk format until 1996, when they sold it to Broadcast Communications, which had just acquired then-Greensburg-based WHJB AM 620. Sadly, Al Calisti died of cancer seven years later.

Under the new ownership, the station moved from its original location at 111 South Fourth Street in Jeannette to WHJB's building at 245 Brown Street in Greensburg. A frequency change to 770 was made in early 2004, giving the station much better coverage of the Pittsburgh market and the ability to do so at a lower power, allowing the station to reach as far north as eastern Armstrong County. The call letters WKFB were selected to be similar to sister station WKHB, with which it shares a number of programs.

[edit] On-Air Personalities and Programs

The station's recent history has been dominated by Frankie Day, a North Versailles, Pennsylvania businessman who has leased over forty hours of air time per week for various oldies programs. Other time periods are filled by automated music and alternative-health programs similar to those heard on sister station WKHB. Weekends are full of ethnic and religious programs, as well as oldies.