Here an interest article I found for a propose AM station in Camas and Washougal back during the 1950's.

Camas Washougal Post-Record April 28, 1955

Plans Announced For Radio Station

Camas and Washougal will soon have a local radio broadcast station. According to Gene R Johnsick who announced his plans for construction of the station with in the next few months.

Johnsick is now chief engineer and assistance manger of station KJUN in Redmond, Oregon and has been engaged in broadcasting for many year in various capacities.

The new radio station will be located between Camas and Washougal. And will serve the entire eastern section of Clark County he said.

He added, he does not know how soon actual work will begin on the station. Since approval must first be received from the Federal Communications Commission in Washington DC. Where the application calls for 1000 watts of power and high fidelity transmitting equipment he said.

Where did you find this? Saw this article back in 2002 while visiting The Camas Library. It was still in book form, they hadn't transferred it to microfilm.

To finish the story, Mr. Johnsick built his radio station although he had problems, first announcing December 1, 1955 as the target date. Then finally launching on or by February 2, 1956. The Post didn't give the date but it's believed to be close, if not thee date. Station KRIV was licensed to Camas-Washougal Radio on 1480kc with 1kw daytime. Studios were above the United Gas Co. (314 N.E. Cedar St.) in Camas, Wash. The transmitter was located at 1916 N.E. 2nd Ave. next to the Washougal River. KRIV calls stood for RIVer.

Mr. Johnsick sold "K-River" on February 8, 1957 to William Barry Murphy & Cathryn (Cragen, maiden name) Murphy. Calls changed to KPVA on June 6, 1958 and KVAN on May 13, 1960. In 1965 city of license changed to Vancouver. On January 18, 1980 calls changed to KARO and then to KAAR on March 25, 1981. Finally to KBMS on July 20, 1988.

There's a hole lot more on this station history but that gives you a brief update to where it is day. Dare I say, this station and KISN had the most interesting Portland area histories of any stations.

Continuous music. KARadiO 1480.

Yes, in the early 80's, whenever I would be up in Portland, I'd listen to 1480, as they had the best playlist of oldies I could imagine. I mean, who else would play Smiley Lewis with the exception of Dale Farr on KBOO?

KPVA ? What did that stand for, Portland - Vancouver?

KAAR in 1984 was the best oldies station I have ever heard. Second would be KSLM Salem in the early 1990s. KAAR was I believe headed by the inimitable Michael Jack Kirby,who really knew his music and cared about it just like a listener. I used to listen to it on the west side at night even though the signal was weak...I called him up once to ask a quick question and he ended up initiating a conversation that went on for probalby twenty minutes or so....

Yes, you guessed it! KPVA stood for "Portland Vancouver Area". At that point KPVA Camas was trying to change its license to Vancouver. That fell through when Bill Murphy left, after the divorce, leaving Cathryn Murphy as sole owner on November 2, 1960. It would be years before the city of license would change. Cathryn was one of the most colorful figures in Northwest broadcast history.

Greenway: Yes, Michael Jack Kirby was K-double-A-R's PD at the time and had an incredible amount of carted oldies numbering possibly in the thousands! We would take huge stacks into the studio to play. Some stuff was very obscure. Mike went very deep in this Oldies format and a lot of R&B. Pat Pattee who did afternoon drive most likely had influence. Going SO deep was also the primarily reason Mike was let go.

It's interesting that the KJUN calls were associated with 2 different local stations over 40 years apart! KARO, later KAAR was a Top 40 station and a pretty good one! Who else could manage to jettison their nighttime directional to run 1kw ND, in the name of "volcano hardship"? I'll never forget it.

"The smell of a freshly mowed lawn ... lemonade in the shade ..." (I can't remember exactly how that liner concluded).

I sometimes managed to DX Pat Pattee on KAAR within 20-30 minutes before legal sunset if KRED wasn't already booming in from Eureka.

KAAR truly was the best oldies station anywhere.

KRED was so loud in my Cans at night, it was hard concentrating on what I was saying if the K-Red jock was talking also.

I remember my first promo visit to KVAN which was an AOR AM at the time in 1976. The studios were in an old houseboat floating in a slough on the Columbia River with a real gang-plank walkway to get to the front door. There was no indoor plumbing...the toilet was in another building about 50 yards from the houseboat. When I walked in a couple of doggies got up from the front office and moved on...the GM, can't remember his name, was sitting behind a desk cleaning a pistol, a Smith & Wesson.38 He was wearing a vest, cowboy hat and boots, which were propped up on the desk as he cleaned the gun. I think Gloria Johnson was the MD at the time....and as I remember Bob Anchetta, the Big BA, was the PD. They played a lot of music and reported to the trades and Portland music retailers loved them because the played mostly new music. And of course the record companies loved them too for the same reason. I have to say, it was the funkiest radio station I have ever seen....but the place had soul and they broke a lot of acts. Long live KVAN!!!

Howard Slobodin bought the station from the Murphy/Brown empire when the FCC found out that they had relocated the station without filing the necessary paperwork (not that they moved it far).
He got the station pretty cheap. I worked there starting in the end of 76 through 78. There are two histories. The history of 1480 and the history of KVAN. For a long time they were one and the same. During the 70's when progressive AOR thrived, KVAN was already there. Before KGON, before KINK. KVAN had broad appeal but a lousy signal. During the period I was there we constructed a nighttime four tower DA out at 163rd and SE34th in Vancouver where there is still an array, albeit it has gone through several transformations since then. At that time KVAN was one of only two stations with more nighttime power 5kW than daytime power 1kW. In order to protect KRED there was a deep null at 187 degrees. On Marine drive the null was barely a couple of blocks wide. On NE Glisan it was 12 blocks wide. On SE Division it was 20 blocks wide. You get the picture. However, it had great coverage in a lot of places that struggled during the day to hear the 1kW. I was first all night guy since Iris got fed up waiting for it to happen and jumped ship to KGON where Gloria already was. During my night shift I got a lot of phone calls from places that loved the format and had never heard the daytime signal at all. I never had problems in the mod monitor with KRED at night, although down around Oregon City they would begin to dominate, making the KVAN night signal almost imperceptible. I still have a cassette with the Big BA, me, some old commercials on it ... I should digitize it and post it on one of those free sites for old radio stuff. Thinking about it makes me feel old! The bathroom was Rusty's Gun Club. To read the base current meter, you had to climb a 20 step ladder to a platform they put up when Smith Lake flooded and they converted the antenna to a folded unipole to keep broadcasting. Not sure what year that was. Mrs. Brown moved there in the late 60's from down the road, so the conversion was after that but before Howard bought it. Again, BA would know if he remembers.

KVAN was a blast. It was a lot of work, though. 36 hours on the air, two transmitter sites, building a new studio pretty much singlehanded at the site of the 5kW DA ... RFI ... hum ... noise ... no budget ...

They just don't make them like that anymore.

Howard sold it to KAAR. He bought a bunch of Rohn stock and made way more money off of that then he did off of selling KVAN. KAAR dropped the DA probably because it did not duplicate the teapot omni day pattern. When they lifted the moratorium on building permits in the slough, 1480 added a night array at the daytime site. I think it's 2.5 kW? and I'm sure it still had that null southward. Anyway, when Howard sold it I was already gone ... I quit because Howard wouldn't give me sick day I sorely needed, having the flu and being overworked, often expected to be in two places at once ... so I said, (not to steal my old teammate from Magic 107 Steve Nagamuma's line)"seeeyaaaaa bye!!!." I told the BA and he said "YOU DID WHAT?" YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!! Bob left next for Q100 I think? Les F. hung on till the end and worked for KAAR for a while. Later Les and I would team up again to pursue 105.9. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Howard has/had a collection of old Vancouver radio paraphernalia which included KVAN 910 mic shields and posters. He might have had some of the old Camas 1480 items, too, but I just don't remember. The Big BA would. My second day in Oregon I tracked down that old building in the slough and walked in. Gloria was the only one there that day. She immediately sent me on a food run to the Red Steer for an order of, get this, toast. 3 months later I had a weekend shift on air and got to keep BA's pride and joy ancient Ampex reel to reel in top working order. No spare parts for anything in the station. One or two used tubes for the xmitter, alcohol and swabs and a voltmeter that didn't work.

more ...

Stan: WOW! Never heard from BA that K-Van was ever on a houseboat! Always thought in 1976 "The Mono Maniacs" were at their transmitter site at "The St. Johns Gun Club & Dog Motel" at 11197 N. Portland Rd.

That's the place. I don't remember it being a "houseboat" per se, although it was on a shaky foundation at best. I have a picture from 1988. Rusty's Gun club was the group of buildings further down the driveway.

Andy: What road was the K-Van houseboat on? Where on that road?

The driveway to Rusty's Gun Club was off of N. Portland Rd. right before the bridge over the slough. It is clearly visible on USGS maps, which even shows the buildings.

The sign said 11197 N. Portland Rd. The driveway curved down to and then paralleled the slough. The first building on the right as you traveled along the driveway was KVAN. Then the gun club buildings. KWJJ was once further up the driveway according to the USGS maps, either before or after it was at or near the intersection (now intersection, then just a 90 degree turn) where Marine Dr. becomes N. Portland Rd. which is across the Smith Lake bed. The driveway entrance was about 25 yards from the slough bridge and curved down towards the slough and then disappeared through the trees. I'll email you a map.

Yes! That's the site I remember and I even posted the same address as you. See my post above. I'm now wondering if "Stan The Man" is getting K-Van mixed up with another station he visited.

Nah ... The building was small and had a narrow porch on two sides we used to p off of. It's quite possible it was a houseboat that Mrs. Brown moved there, or just a small building/house that was moved on site. It sat on concrete slabs if memory serves. If I remember to, I'll scan the photo I have of it. It's also in a photograph on this site.

I remember it as a houseboat....but maybe it was just that the tide was high and the slough was coming up around the sides of the building. I have a picture of me in front of the building and you can see the "gangplank" as I called it....maybe it was just a bouncy bunch of 2 x 4s but to me it was a gangplank leading up to the front door. And now I remember the GMs name....we called him "Dr. Slo". As I recall he always had that pistol on his desk when he was asking the label for a time buy. And of course he always got the buy...but they played the hell out of the LPs that we gave them and reported everything to the trades so it was a good deal for all, including the Mono Maniac listeners.

They had a construction permit for 5kw daytime but never built it out. Later, they had a CP that, the best I could figure was exactly like the 5kw directionals but moved all the way down to Government Island so instead of the signal in the null running out before the Columbia River, it would make it all the way to SE Flavel Street! Unfortunately, there was a bird sanctuary on the island and that was all she wrote. If they had been able to broadcast from there, KARO would really have been a factor! It's a shame.