KEST (1450 AM) is a brokered time

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 ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Most of the station's programming is in Asian languages, including

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

. It also airs some

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

programs as well as

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...

shows in English. KEST, then called KSOL, was one of the first full time "

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed p ...

" radio stations in the U.S. That station employed

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...

Sylvester Stewart, later known as

Sly Stone Sylvester Stewart (born March 15, 1943), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the ...

Sly and the Family Stone Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, it was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. Its core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi ...

recording fame. Multicultural Radio owns KEST and numerous ethnic stations across the country, including five in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. KEST transmits with 1,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s by day and 960 watts at night. It shares a

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to ...

site with

KSFB KSFB (1260 AM) is a radio station licensed to San Francisco, California. It broadcasts Relevant Radio, a Roman Catholic radio format, to the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. It was previously known as KYA (AM) until 1983, and KOIT ...

1260 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1260 kHz: There are 55 stations in the United States which broadcast on 1260 AM; the Federal Communications Commission classifies 1260 AM as a regional frequency. Argentina * LT14 Gral ...

, off Bayview Park Road, near the

Bayshore Freeway The Bayshore Freeway is a part of U.S. Route 101 (US 101) in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It runs along the west shore of the San Francisco Bay, connecting San Jose with San Francisco. Within the city of San Fr ...

(

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal R ...

) in San Francisco.

History

KGTT, KGGC and KSAN

On , the station first

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature, placing one's name on a document * Signature (disambiguation) * Manual communication, signing as a form of communication using the hands in place of the voice * Digital signature A dig ...

the air. Its first

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assig ...

was KGTT. A few years later, it switched its callsign to KGGC, which stood for the Golden Gate Broadcasting Company. It was among the first stations on the air in San Francisco. In the 1930s, it was powered at only 100 watts and had to share time with other stations on its frequency of 1420

kilocycle The cycle per second is a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the hertz (Hz). The plural form was typically used, often written cycles per second, cycles/second, c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just cycles (Cy./Cyc.). The ...

s. It was bought in 1939 by Sherwood Patterson, who changed the call letters to KSAN. After the 1941 enactment of the

North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, es, Convenio Regional Norteamericano de Radiodifusión) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band ( mediumwave) radio stations. These agre ...

(NARBA) where many stations switched their dial positions, KSAN moved up the dial to 1450 kHz. New studios were constructed in the Merchandise Mart near Market Street and a 250-watt transmitter was installed in a tower on top of the building.

R&B and Soul

In 1958, KSAN switched to a full-time

music format, targeting black listeners in the Bay Area, the first station on the local dial to broadcast R&B around the clock. KSAN's transmitter was on top of the Merchandise Mart building on Market Street, where the studios were located. Until the 1950s, San Francisco radio stations devoted little time to "ethnic" programming of any kind, with the exception of KSAN and KWBR, which also broadcast programs intended for the Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, German and Japanese communities. On July 3, 1964, KSAN was sold to John F. (Les) Malloy and Delmor A. (Del) Courtney, two well-known San Francisco radio and television personalities. Malloy was for many years a star on local radio and had hosted a popular TV talk show on KGO-TV in the 1950s, while Courtney found fame as a bandleader and personality on

KSFO KSFO (560 AM) is a commercial radio station in San Francisco, California. It is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a talk radio format. The station's studios and offices are on Battery Street in the SoMa district of San Francisco, along with f ...

. With Malloy as president and general manager, KSAN became KSOL under new ownership, hoping to better emphasize its "Soul Radio" format, which continued until September 1970. KSOL helped launch the career of popular 1960s and 1970s musician

, who was one of the station's DJs

KEST

With

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban conte ...

stations available on the FM dial by the 1970s, KSAN concentrated on other underserved communities in the Bay Area, including ethnic groups looking for radio programming in their language. The station became KEST. In 1974, KEST changed its format to a mix of old time radio dramas, comedy recordings known as "Freeway Funnies" and talk shows. The station was known as "KEST Theater Of The Air". In 1977, KEST dropped the old time radio dramas and talk shows and changed formats to religious programming but surprisingly kept the "Freeway Funnies" until 1980. In the early 1990s, KEST adopted a multilingual ethnic format and became part of Douglas Broadcasting.

Translator station

In 2019, KEST was granted an

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 ...

allocation on 104.9 MHz. The coverage of this low-power outlet was expected to be limited to Southeast San Francisco and the city of South San Francisco. But 104.9 is also used by classical music station KXSC in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the no ...

, serving the San Jose metropolitan area. KXSC is a fulltime

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simult ...

of San Francisco classical station KDFC on 90.3 MHz. When it went on the air, the KEST translator began interfering with KXSC's signal in some communities located between San Jose and San Francisco. In reaction, KDFC began an on-air appeal to listeners looking for interference complaints from the new transmitter.https://www.kdfc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Listener-Interference-Complaint-Form-Template-KXSC-and-K285HD-c3.pdf Eventually, KEST took its translator station off the air.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for KEST
* *KSAN:
Jumpin' George Oxford on KSAN 1450 (1955; 30 minutes)

KSAN 1450 "Most In Rhythm & Blues" Jingle (c. 1958; 30 seconds)

The Burner (Bill Mercer) on KSAN 1450 (December 15, 1960; 2 minutes)

John Hardy/Rockin' Lucky Show Transition on KSAN (Dec. 16, 1960; 1 minute)

Mike Dix as Jumpin' George on KSAN (June/July 1963; 34 minutes)

Doctor Soul on KSOL 1450 (c. 1966; 30 minutes)

KSOL 1450 "Swingin' Soul Brothers" Jingle (c. 1966; 15 seconds)

Charlie Brown on KSOL (July 12, 1966; 11 minutes)

Sly Stone and Ronnie Dark on KSOL Soul 145 (March 29, 1967; 1 hour)
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