I was looking at the site and saw some comments regarding KKEY. I know something about KKEY and there were comments I wanted to respond to however it would not accept comments! Blast It. Someone said I was nuts.! And I wanted to tell them what I thought! He said I taught at Ron Baily Broadcast School. Never did. They also went on to say I went to the same Church as Mary Pierce or Grace Phipps. Bong! If she went to the same Church as me I would have left and taken my chances on going to Hell! I am Catholic and have been such since I was a baby! She was somekind of Evangelical. So to those that say I am nuts.....Don't mess with old people! In Good news area I spoke to Bob Dye the other day he is still around. Sorry had to vent! Of you will excuse me!

To be correct I did teach at a local Broadcast School. However it was not Ron Baily. Did that for several years. Don't recall doing any substitute work there. If he was in my class he really wasn't doing very well if he can not even remember the name of the school.

Jerry Dimmitt Welcome Aboard! I'm sure You could share a lot a behind the scenes knowledge from your times at KKEY, KLIQ & KAAR as well as some great radio stories.

wasn't KKEY aka Kookey?

KKEY was unique, And was the only talk station In Portland for many years it was different. Yet had many listeners, KGW thought we were kooky yet one of their most succesful announcers came from KKEY. Perhaps if they would have hired a few more former KKY hosts they would not have failed in Portland. Wexler would not even talk to me so I went to KXL. And I could write a book about that!

I think Wexler did not understand that in the later days. After Ralph died. And his wife Linda was running the station she would meet someone and put them on the air. So I think Wexler felt KKEY had hundreds of talk show hosts. And he had 100's of applications from former KKEY Talk Hosts. So he just threw them out when he saw KKEY on them. The sad thing was when Ralph ran KKEY there were many of us that had been there for years. Myself 17 years. That is somewhat different than someone that was there for 2 Shows and left. But he treated all KKEY people the same.

I have fond memories when I would go with my Father(Roger) to KKEY studios downtown Portland.

Ones such as the unique smell of the interior of the building, to Mary Pierce's intro song which was an instrumental song(The Ventures Walk Don't Run?), Ralph's big desk, and me giving the phone number out to the audience was too cool. Of course I met you to Jerry.

It's too bad they didn't fix up and leave the KKEY neon Marquee on the building. That looked cool.

Alex: I also remember that wonderful smell you mentioned when I visited KKEY. It's the smell of cooking tubes in the transmitter. I had forgotten about the tube transmitter smells since most studios today are separate, when I visited once as a guest during KKEY's 40th Anniversary broadcast.

I brought the smell up on the air because we were talking about the early days of KKEY & KHFS. I think the host took my comment as negative. I couldn't put into words how to describe it. I guess you'd have to have worked in radio during the tube period to know what I'm talking about. It had been years since I had smelled cooking tubes and all my early radio station memories came rushing back. For me it was euphoric!

And How! I have been working on a 1946 Zenith 8H023 radio (AM & 2 FM bands) this evening, and the aroma in my shop from the hot vacuum tubes (and perhaps hot wax dripping out of some of the by-pass capacitors) is WONDERFUL! Nothing like it... I can only imagine the aroma from a large vacuum tube transmitter !

Tubes, son. Nothing in the world smells like that. I love the smell of tubes in the morning.

From where I sat, KGW's Talk format did not fail. They had a 5 year plan, the owner died(sound familiar?)and much to everyone's surprise, the daughters sold the stations. Instead of 5 years, they had about 2 and the ratings were starting to jell. I believe they were up over a 3 share(12+)but sales didn't have time to catch up. They had to do something quickly to bring the station out of the red and make it saleable. That something was to simulcast KINK.

In what part of downtown Portland were the KKEY studios and transmitter located back then?

It was on the corner of SW 13th and Burnside, where it runs into Stark. There was a giant sign!

IIRC, this was one of those odd triangle shaped buildings, built where various streets peeled off from Burnside at an odd angle. The HUGE neon sign was on the "leading edge" of the triangle visible for many blocks by motorists moving east on Burnside. Portland Radio Supply was conveniently located just to the south.

There was a giant sign!

For those folks who did not grow up around here, KKEY was located in the Flatiron Building where Ringler's Annex is today.

Welcome aboard Jerry! I loved your show and have many fond memories of KKEY.

Thanks, I'd been wondering what the inside of that building looked like now.

There was a bar to the east of KKEY, directly across the street from Jakes and Portland Radio Supply... Desert room? Caravan? Safari Room? something like that... anybody remember the name for sure?

Also, What color was the KKEY neon sign? I can picture it as either red or white... don't remember which.

According to the painting on my wall, the lettering is white.

It was white, I remember.

I couldn't find a photo, but in the process of looking ran across this reminiscence:
http://isaac.blogs.com/isaac_laquedem/2004/12/too_much_talk_a.html

For sure, the block letters were painted white and appeared white during daylight hours. I just asked my wife, and she remembered that at night it was lit up white *and* red, perhaps white neon around the edge and red neon in the center of the letters, or, perhaps changing from red to white, in sequence.

Correct, white neon around the edge. I don't think there was red. The station colors were white, black and a little bit of gold.

"Portland Radio Supply was conveniently located just to the south."
And kiddy-corner on the SW corner was the old KGW downtown studio from the early 50's. Second Floor.

Hi Alex! I do not remember that there was any red in the sign. Then again I do not recall ever seeing it at night.I have a picture around here of the building somewhere. Taken when Uri Geller bent the parking meter! By looking at it from From Ralph's office.
In Amateur radio We have a motto; "Real Radios Glow in the Dark"
As for that bar in the building. I would need matches and would say on the air " I am going to that strange Bar next door for some matches. If I am not back after the break call the Police. I would take any chance for matches!
Once Roy Masters was doing his show from the building. After he finished we headed over to Jakes for lunch.....A heavy set guy walked out of that Bar he was wearing a dress and had not shaved...Roy looked at me very serious and said "That's one of them, I can spot them a mile a way!

Although I was only there for three years (1988-91), I watched KKEY decline rapidly. It was already unfortunate that the morning drive was consumed by religious programming, but the events that unfolded during my short tenure boggled everyone's mind.

First, the sales manager Roger Hart was fired when Linda returned from an NAB convention. Linda felt he was a threat to her authority, so out the door her went. Roger was so good at what he did he could sell freezers to eskimos. No matter, he made Linda feel insecure so off he went. I didn't get to work with Roger for very long, but I sure did look up to him.

Later that same year, Jerry was canned as PD. Brilliant - let's take the one person who at that time had 26 successful years experience in radio, and toss him aside (I know, it's standard practice in the business but still makes no sense.) In one fell swoop Linda took a wrecking ball to everything Jerry had not only accomplished but was still trying to build.

In the fall of 1989 Rick Miller was let go. He and Linda just didn't get along, so she s*&tcanned him but didn't do a very good job of keeping it to herself before the day came. When Rick came to work that day, he was dressed in a three piece suit - ready to look elesewhere. Never mind that he was the one remaining professional who was also bringing in decent ad revenue at the time.

It wasn't long after this when Carl Daly (Perkins) couldn't take it anymore and voluntarily left.

Next, one of the "hosts" was allowed to have Tom Metzger (White Arrayan Resistance) on the air not once, but twice! What was left of the station's image was badly tarnished when shortly after the second time Metzger was on, the downtown offices and studio were vandalized. KPTV reporter Lars Larson and KGW-TV had fun with this one. And who shows up during the TV media's visit? Good ol' Tom Metzger with a check for the "host" whose Braille printer was destroyed. Finally, Linda saw the light and figured out it wasn't a good idea to have people like Metzger on the air repeatedly. Ask Norman Battaglia (Stormin' Norman) how uncomfortable it feels to interview someone in a studio that's been thoroughly trashed with black spray paint.

Let's not forget the wild idea that Ray Horn presented to Linda and she went along with, jazz on the weekends! Yep, that's how I like my jazz at night, on a 47 watt AM station. Actually the idea was pitched as big band music, but when the first day came it was like hearing KKUL all over again. Even though IMO Linda was fooled, she just went along with it. But that's the way she ran the place. If there was the possibility of any kind of money to be made regardless of how unprofessional or tacky it may be, she'd let anyone go on.

It's amazing to me that KKEY survived until 1998. I sometimes wonder if Linda went bankrupt keeping that place afloat for so long. But it was sad that the station that Ralph Weagant ran for so long and helped create died the slow death that it did.

When Roger left KKEY, he joined us over at Kisn-FM & Sunny 910. Great luck for us!

You got that right!

Russ it is your youth that allows you to remember all those names! And working there caused you to hit it right on the head!
Pax et Bonum Jer

I noticed in the years after I left, the majority (if not all) of the remaining local programming paid Linda to be on the air! Anyone could walk in off the street, give her a check, and viola they had show. What a joke. To think that the station that once had the likes of Jack Hurd, Jerry Dimmitt, and Rick Miller had come to this. Ralph must have been doing 360's in his grave.

There are two different bars being talked about here. The Caravan (I think) was up a block). The one Dimmitt is referring to is the Silverado, formerly known as Flossie's. I worked as a talkshow host briefly at KKEY as well, and unlike other hosts, I was also a regular at Flossie's and the gay bathhouse that was also in the building.

I used an air name at the time (Roger Stark) and owned a restaurant down the street (Roxie's). In order to separate my radio life from my real life, I'd walk out the KKEY door, go around the block, and enter the restaurant or Flossie's or wherever I was going.

The reason I did this was because of something Jerry Dimmitt (my talkradio mentor) told me, "Don't get too close to the audience. Some of them are really weird." And he was right. I had the misfortune of meeting some of them. After a time some of them realized that I also owned the restaurant and came in wanting to talk about politics. In my restaurant mode the last thing I wanted to do was a talkshow by proxy. I had to wait tables or wash dishes or whatever.

KKEY was an interesting trip. Between Linda's unusual management style -- believe only the last thing you hear -- and the setup (board op in Vancouver, call screener intern downstairs that you could see on a TV monitor, and screening software that ran on disposable Commodore 64s that kept burning out) it was a challenge.

Still, it was interesting to do a weekend show in a time slot that didn't get any ratings at all (0.0 literally), and bring it up to a 2.1 in one book. All that with no promo budget. There were actually some good listeners out there that I managed to turn into good callers...and then there were the others, the people the play, "Talk Radio" was all about. Those people were, shall we say, a little unwrapped.

--David Kaye, former Roger Stark (the worst name I could possibly have chosen)

While I'm at it, let me describe the KKEY setup a little. The station was licensed to Portland with studio at 13th & Burnside and transmitter in Vancouver. The board op was in Vancouver, but due to the noise of the equipment, the board op couldn't combo. In fact, the board op sat right in front of the 5kw transmitter. One time it overheated and freaked out the board op. Heck, I'd have run out the building myself.

KKEY also had a critical hours license, allowing it to operate with very low power at night to protect a Seattle station also on 1150. For this, KKEY ran a 47 watt traffic information service (TIS) transmitter. Close in the signal could actually be heard, but it killed the phone calls; just not enough audience within range.

The host would be sitting alone in the 2nd floor studio looking at a camera showing the intern call screener (when they would show up) on the first floor. The headphones had a mix of program audio and talkback from the board op. The host's controls consisted of a gain control and maybe a cough button (I forget) and a button.

The button was actually ingenious. When you pressed it the button would send a tone down the program line to Vancouver. This tone would trip a relay that would dump out of the time delay in the rack in Vancouver and go live (until the delay built back up again). So, both the host and the board op had control over the delay. I had to press it once when a caller accidentally said "bullshit". The board op (Rick Miller at the time) wasn't even aware -- he thought I'd hit the button accidentally!

It was a fun time at a station run by a creepy owner.

I have since gone on to various fill-in work in Bay Area radio and TV, but decided after that adventure that I really didn't want to be a fulltime anything in broadcasting. Today I do occasional voiceover, but generally I am a freelance tech support person and musician.

I don't recall a gain control in the studio. For a short time, I broadcast from in front of that transmitter. It was noisy, alright!

Welcome to the PDX Radio discussion, David. I've enjoyed your posts on other radio boards since the days of Airwaves back in '96.

Airwaves....wow. Thanks for the kind words.

Jerry, you were at Bailie at least once during the '78-'79 class year. I was there and I remember it. Why don't you?

KKEY seemed way more boring than talk radio does now!why is that?

KKEY was an acquired taste. I found a lot of it boring, but then there were a bunch of hosts who were so bizarre and had such bizarre callers that you'd listen and your jaw would drop open.

Tad Savinar wrote a play called "Talk Radio", later adapted for Broadway and for the screen by Eric Bogosian in 1988 -- the play was originally based on KKEY and its carnival of callers. I believe Tad Savinar still lives in Portland.

Yes KKEY callers were bizarre at times.

May 3, 1976 an elderly woman caller literally died on the air on KKEY. Her dog barked from time to time after.

I don't know who's show this was but it would have made sense happening on "The Bob Dye Show" on 11am to 1pm daily.

I believe the woman's name was Ruby Nelson. She called Laura Hall off the air and in the middle of their conversation, she stopped speaking. Laura left the line open until local police got into the woman's house and found her lying dead on the floor. She was 62. Bob Dye replaced Laura in 1977.

Semoochie Thanks! Now that's Key Trivia!

I think what made KKEY worth listening to, at least part of the time, for me was the unpredictability of it. Some of the programming was dreadful, some was fascinating and it was often surprising. One of the disappointing aspects for me of a lot of current talk programming is that it's so predictable. I understanding the thinking behind the way talk radio is done now but the result for me is still often boredom. For example, I love Rachel Maddow's show but I think it would be FAR more interesting if Rachel had to contend with some articulate conservatives on her show on a regular basis. I have no doubt she'd be up for it and it would, imho, make MUCH more interesting radio. (or TV)

Maybe with the audience aging there could be a way to sell listeners who die on the air for the sales dept a whole new kind of lights out show

a few years back in that bldg. was a pizza shop that made real good pizza!!!11-50 pizza!!??

There was a pizza joint in KGAR's old studio at Tenth. Was there another one further up Burnside?

I was in there six or eight years ago and told the girl serving me the location had been a radio station (as if she'd be interested to know). She was maybe 20 and had no clue and seemed to think I was fooling. (This happens more and more often... what's disturbing is I just get polite humoring smiles now.) I don't think she even knew KISN had been across the street. Or perhaps even what KISN had been.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sure mark of a geezer to presume people might care about 40 years ago. (When I was a kid I'd been taught to respect 100-200 years ago, but I probably didn't have much regard for ... what? ... 1925, either.)

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sure mark of a geezer to presume people might care about 40 years ago. (When I was a kid I'd been taught to respect 100-200 years ago, but I probably didn't have much regard for ... what? ... 1925, either.)"


I think the difference is that 100 to 200 years ago there were major advances in technology, changes in social structure (such as the beginnings of a middle class), and advances in literature and the arts.

Contrast this with 40 or 50 years ago, and we see that rather than radio becoming an advancement in our society it's become irrelevant to our society. So, for a woman working at a pizza place to marvel that KISN was once across the street or KKEY was once down the street is like expecting her to marvel that Burnside once was a dirt road.

One of my favorite geezer activities is driving around pointing out buildings and other landmarks saying, "that didn't used to be there!"

'I'll bet you remember when this was all fields." I once heard someone make the "field" reference about 30th and Powell!

Geezers, what was located at 10th and Burnside before KISN moved in?

Powells books location was an auto dealer I think??

Joe Fisher or was it Jim?

It was a Chevy Dealer

I seem to recall Wentworth & Irwin AMC being there.

Oh,Oh... perhaps another false memory on my part... I thought it was a Rambler dealer

Rambler *was* AMC.

My dad worked across Burnside and bought three of his (used) cars there.

Does anyone remember the street address for KISN? (Or the name of the building?) That would give me something to Google on.

Your memory's okay, Jr_tech! AMC = Nash, Hudson, Rambler, Ambassador, Marlin, Gremlin, Pacer, Rebel, etc., over the years.

Jeffrey, KISN was at 10 NW 10th Ave.

Perhaps, Kq4... but my wife remembers the west end of the block that Powells occupies now as being a Chrysler dealer (Ralph Hoyt), and the East end of the *same* block (west of the window on the world) being the Nash/Rambler dealer.

This would make for interesting discussion on the other side of the board, so I will make one final observation here: I don't recall a Ralph Hoyt. I do remember Roy Burnett Chrysler-Imperial-DeSoto at NW 8th & Everett, and Broadway at Couch.

I'll say this for KKEY, at least it was conversation, not the crap we hear today which amounts to "Listen to what I say and you don't get on the air unless you tell me how great my show and views are". You called in and told them you wanted to talk to the host and you did.

The Dimmitt, Bob Dye, Lee Evans, Dave Collins, must listen to radio, I really miss those days.

There is some of that happening on 970 right now. The idea of the dramas being aired sucked me in. Hadn't tuned in a long time.

I've enjoyed a lot of the talk programming. Kudos to them!

(and give them the love for the dramas people --it's just cool!)

http://feedback.pdxradio.com/show.cgi?tpc=5&post=260093#POST260093

Actually (at least when I was there) the BLEEP button in the studio would cause 10 seconds of silence. The delay dump was in Vancouver. Those were two lines of defense. Two others were pushing a button that caused silence for as long as you pressed it (I would use this one if I heard specifically what was said, and then turned up the delayed on-air monitor to know exactly what to censor); and just killing the mic and running a spot.

But there were times when the studio bleep button would not work. It happened to me twice when filling in for Rick Miller and someone got passed the screener. A much more notable time was the day Dave Collins was going off on damn near every caller. There seemed to be more carrier than actual sound. Then came the fateful moment when coming out of yet another 10 seconds of dead silence he said to a woman caller, "Why don't you go take a dousche lady, your c*nt stinks." Next thing you heard was the tone that Davidkaye mentioned, but this time no dead air. Dave just continued as if nothing had happened until Ralph walked in the studio about ten minutes later and fired him on the air. I guess my only question is, where was the board op in Vancouver and why didn't they catch it? Not only that but when Ralph kicked Dave out, why didn't the board op run some spots or something to fill the time? There was dead air for several minutes! I guess they were asleep or next door at the 7-Eleven buying smokes.

Plus the homemade board was interesting. It only had four pots. One that had multiple selections, but you could only use one at a time (three separate reel to reels, two separate cassettes, the production studio, patch panel, and EBS); one for the downtown studio; one for all three cart decks and an automated time announcer, and one for satellite feeds. It was rather primative but by golly it worked some how. Just after I left Linda finally sprung for a new board. I often wonder if the reason I never had any children until I was three weeks shy of turning 30 was because of all the hours spent sitting within inches of a 5kw transmitter! Seriously there was only about three feet distance between the board and the xmitter.

As for a mic gain control in the studio, there was one but that is all that it controlled. If the host didn't want the board op to hear what they were saying during a break, they would just turn it all the way down. There was no volume control for the headphones however.

Powell's actually had 3 separate locations on W. Burnside. The first was the former A.B. Smith Chevy dealership which became Partners in Time antiques for a while. Then what later became Spartacus Leathers on the South Side of Burnside, and finally the present location, which was originally Wentworth & Irwin. Ralph Hoyt Plymouth, later Pontiac was named after Ralph and Hoyt Tarola, the sons of the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer who had that location on 11th & Burnside in the 1930s.
The Wentworth family has been in the car business in Oregon since 1903, but I have no clue what ever happened to Mr. Irwin.

Thanks for filling-in some history, Don. Good stuff! Before Joe Tarola took over at 11th & Burnside in 1931, it was Braley & Graham Dodge!

About KKEY, Jerry Dimmitt once played for me the Dave Collins segment when he kept cursing the callers and dumping the delay until there was no more delay left and his invectives went over the air. As I recall from hearing that aircheck it took Ralph only a few moments to walk in and fire Dave. And as I recall Dave seemed surprised that he was being fired. From what Jerry told me, Dave was purposely baiting callers by insulting them and trying to work up vitriol. To be honest, it wasn't very good radio at all.

Agreed. Too bad he stooped to that level because he was good at political talk whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him.

Might be known to the regulars here, but this article about Jack Hurd's animal rescue efforts was news to me. (Or something I knew but had forgotten.)

http://www.animalaidpdx.org/home/JackHurdStory.php

Jack often talked about "Animal Aid" on KKEY.

It's nice to hear that Kathy Goodwife is still going strong. She was a regular contributor to Jack's show as "Granny". I was so surprised the first time I heard her on the air, right after this eloquent sounding younger woman spoke to me!

Sunday afternoon's with Henreen on KKEY back in the mid 1980's. Now that was some fine broadcasting!

There's no way you could know the correct spelling so I provide it here as a public service: Henryene. I drove her to Ralph's funeral.

> Then came the fateful moment when coming out of yet another 10 seconds of dead silence he said to a
> woman caller, "Why don't you go take a dousche lady, your c*nt stinks."

Oh, my goodness! Why, oh why did he feel the need to do this?

When 1150 was KKGT, circa 2001, it appears that no delay was being used. Some mean-spirited prankster called the Bruce Broussard show, and he said, in a very wound-up, Dr. Demento-like voice, something that sounded like, "I want to f*ck you hard." and hung up. Broussard, not having understood the caller replied with something like, "well some folks are certainly excited..." The same guy called up a few minutes later and said, "Hi, I have one more question for you. Why isn't there a f*cking delay?"