KEST (1450 AM) is a brokered-time

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. 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 is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

. It also airs some

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

programs as well as

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

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 genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

" 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 nightclubs or music fes ...

Sylvester Stewart, later known as

Sly Stone Sylvester Stewart (March 15, 1943 – June 9, 2025), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, was an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He was the frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development ...

Sly and the Family Stone Sly and the Family Stone was an American band formed in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1966 and active until 1983. Their work, which blended elements of funk, soul music, soul, psychedelic rock, gospel music, gospel, and R&B, becam ...

recording fame.

Multicultural Radio Multicultural Broadcasting is a media company based in New York City founded by Chinese-American businessman Arthur Liu. It caters mostly to the Asian American community and owns television and radio stations in several of the top markets in mu ...

owns KEST and numerous ethnic stations nationwide, including five in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. KEST transmits with 1,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), 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 quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

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

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

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 KO ...

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. Because 1260 kHz is a ...

, 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 F ...

(

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

) in San Francisco.

History

KGTT, KGGC and KSAN

The station first

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

, with the

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 as ...

KGTT, on November 30, 1925. A few years later, it switched its call letters 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). Cycles per second may be denoted by c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just "cycles" (Cyc., Cy., C, or c). The term comes from repetitive ph ...

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, ; ) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreements also addressed how frequency assignments were d ...

(NARBA), where many stations switched their dial positions, KSAN moved 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, except for 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 a local radio star for many years and hosted a popular TV talk show on KGO-TV in the 1950s, while Courtney found fame as a bandleader and personality on

KSFO KSFO (810 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, featuring a conservative talk radio format. Owned by Cumulus Media, KSFO's studios are on Battery Street in the SoMa portion of San Francisco's Financial Di ...

. With Malloy as president and general manager, KSAN became KSOL under new ownership, hoping to better emphasize its "Soul Radio" format 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, 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 contemporary r ...

stations 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 tr ...

allocation of 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. 104.9 is also used by

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

station KXSC in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real and U.S. Route 101 in California, Highway 1 ...

, serving the San Jose metropolitan area. KXSC is a full-time

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of 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, simultaneously) ...

of San Francisco classical station

KDFC KDFC (90.3 FM; "Classical California KDFC") is a non-commercial radio station in San Francisco, California, that broadcasts classical music 24 hours daily. It is owned by the University of Southern California. KDFC is the radio home of the San ...

on 90.3 MHz. When it went on the air, the KEST translator began interfering with KXSC's signal in some San Jose and San Francisco communities. In reaction, KDFC began an on-air appeal to listeners looking for interference complaints from the new transmitter.Listener Interference Complaint Form
kdfc.com Eventually, KEST took its translator station off the air.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for KEST
(covering 1927-1980 as KGTT / KGGC / KSAN / KEST) * *KSAN:
Jumpin' George Oxford on KSAN 1450 (1955; 32:42 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; 34:22 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; 11:30 minutes)

Sly Stone and Ronnie Dark on KSOL Soul 145 (March 29, 1967; 1 hour)
{{coord, 37, 42, 58, N, 122, 23, 38, W, type:landmark_region:US, display=title Asian-American culture in San Francisco EST Talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1925 Multicultural Broadcasting stations