KAZG

KAZG
City of license Scottsdale, Arizona
Broadcast area Phoenix metropolitan area
Branding "Arizona Gold"
Frequency 1440 kHz
Format Oldies
Power 5,000 watts day
52 watts night
Class D
Facility ID 11272
Callsign meaning AriZona Gold
Former callsigns KPOK (1956-1964)
KDOT (1964-1977)
KSGR (1977-1978)
KOPA (1978-1980)
KXAM (1980-1982)
KOPA (1982-1996)
KSLX (1996-2001)
Owner Sandusky Radio
(Cactus Radio, Inc.)
Sister stations KSLX-FM, KDKB, KDUS, KUPD
Website kazg1440.com

KAZG (1440 AM) is a radio station broadcasting an oldies format. Licensed to Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, the station covers the Phoenix metropolitan area. KAZG is owned by Sandusky Radio and licensed to Cactus Radio, Inc.[1]

Contents

Call letters

KAZG signed on in 1956 as KPOK ("Cowpoke") in Scottsdale. Like many stations in the Phoenix area at the time, it originally ran a country-music format.

For many years AM 1440 was known as KDOT, and aired an adult-standards format until 1977, when it changed calls to KSGR ("K-Sugar") to fit an oldies format. This lasted until 1978 when it became KOPA. Beginning in the 1960s, it simulcasted on FM 100.7, which continued under various formats and call letters until the mid 1990s.

The station was assigned the call letters KOPA on 1978-04-24. On 1980-09-01, the station changed its call sign to KXAM, and adopted an urban format. On 1982-03-25 they reverted back to KOPA, on 1996-02-19 to KSLX, and on 2001-04-01 to the current KAZG. For about a year in the mid 1990s, they ran CNN Headline News.[2]

Programming

KAZG currently programs an automated format of oldies from the 1950s and 1960s, taken via RCS system feed. Features include "14 in a row" song sweeps without commercials, and usage of the branding slogan "Arizona Gold".[3]

In 2009, two Phoenix-based talk shows from the defunct KXAM radio station made the move to KAZG: the food-themed "Culinary Confessions with Kim and Don" (11am-1pm, weekdays),[4] and sports-talk show "The Positive Side, Sports and Entertainment" that airs from 7:00AM to 10:00AM Monday - Friday.[5] "Culinary Confessions" was simulcast on KXAM and KAZG from April 10, 2009 through KXAM's final day of broadcasting on April 15, 2009.[6]

Transmitter

KAZG is popularly referred to as "The Lumberyard" or "Lumberyard 1440" due to the location of its transmitter, directly behind an actual lumber yard at the corner of 64th Street and Thomas Road in south Scottsdale. From this intersection, the transmitter building is accessible via a dirt path bordering the eastern side of the Salt River Project's Crosscut Canal.[7]

The station transmits at 5,000 watts daytime, and is thus listenable throughout much of the Phoenix metro area. It has a single-tower, non-directional antenna. The station employs C-QUAM AM analog stereo.

Since AM 1440 was originally licensed as an AM daytimer before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abolished the designation, it was required to turn off its transmitter at local sundown, and allowed to turn it back on at local sunrise. Although KAZG is now licensed to transmit at 52 watts of power at night, KAZG owner Sandusky Radio opts to turn off the transmitter, apparently to avoid the electricity expense of transmitting at such an unusable power level. On rare occasions, such as when it carries ASU baseball or University of Nebraska football as an "overflow" station of KDUS, the station will switch to its nighttime power.

Radio observers like to refer to the station's regulator of sunrise/sunset power switches as the "lamp timer," since the times of switching are irregular and tend to drift away from FCC specifications over time, as if the switches were driven by a cheap mechanical lamp timer.[8]

References

External links