KCHJ (1010 AM "El Gallito 1010") is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

that broadcasts a

ranchera Ranchera () or canción ranchera is a genre of traditional music of Mexico. It dates to before the years of the Mexican Revolution. Rancheras today are played in virtually all regional Mexican music styles. Drawing on rural traditional folk mus ...

and Norteño oldies format to the

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley (California), Central Valley r ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, area. Licensed to

Delano, California Delano ( ) is a city in Kern County, California, United States. Delano is located north-northwest of Bakersfield at an elevation of . The population was 51,428 in 2020, down from 53,041 in 2010. It is Kern County's second-largest city after Bak ...

, the station is currently owned by Lotus Communications. Its studios are located in southwest Bakersfield, while its transmitter is located northwest of Delano.

FM Translator

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tra ...

simulcasts the main

AM broadcasting AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transm ...

station; it improves coverage and provides the listener the ability to tune an FM frequency with its inherently improved sound. The FM translator utilizes only vertical polarization.

History

KCHJ was an outlet for Country Western music in the 1960s and 1970s. It was owned by Charles H. Johnes (pronounced Jones) hence the call letters KCHJ. It was a clear channel station so it had listeners over a large geographical area in

Central California Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California, which includes Los Angeles, and south of Northern California, which includes San Francisco. It includes the northern portion of the San Jo ...

, as Mr. "Jones" was fond of pointing out on the air. He was one of the disk jockeys, using the name Gable Herman. In the early 1960s the station featured an evening program known as "Freeway 99" (California's Freeway 99 ran right through the City of Delano). The Freeway 99 Show, hosted by Gable, featured music from the

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, ...

, Big Band, and

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

genres such as Bert Kaempfert's "Wonderland by Night." Charles was a pilot before he died. He died in an auto accident in 1968, and from 1968 until the station was sold in 1991, it was operated and managed by his widow, Jean Johnes. She died in 2009 at the age of 94. Tapes of his program were broadcast on the radio station for many years after he died. Other popular disk jockeys were Bill Lambert, Cousin Rich Allison, Gilbert Oeste, and Todd Welch, better known (as " ''DJ Sir T''). KCHJ Debut Disco, Funk , Soul & R&B And Then Rap Music" Was In Late 1978 Dan Bigelow And local Record Store Owner Rueben Mendoza Jr Of Centro Musical. Mr. Oeste broadcast a popular

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

program and there was also a program called Filipino Ling Ling Dai broadcast in

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...

and other Filipino languages. There was a studio at the transmission site which was located north west of Delano. A live program called "The Barn Dance" was broadcast on weekends and the public was invited to visit during the show. The station was put up for sale in 1999, with Lotus Communications acquiring it. The sale was consummated on August 24. In 2000, KCHJ adopted the "El Gallito" format of classic

Ranchera Ranchera () or canción ranchera is a genre of traditional music of Mexico. It dates to before the years of the Mexican Revolution. Rancheras today are played in virtually all regional Mexican music styles. Drawing on rural traditional folk mus ...

and Norteño hits. From 2016 to 2019, this station was simulcast on 92.1 FM.

References

External links

* {{Lotus Communications CHJ CHJ Radio stations established in 1968 Lotus Communications stations