Salem Communications’ 1300 KKOL “Business Radio” has resumed full power operation after operating with temporary authority from the 1490 KBRO towers with 1 kW day & night. The FCC granted the change to KKOL a year back, but delays affected by local zoning rules, plus the complexity of combining KKOL‘s signal with co-owned 1590 KLFE & 1680 KNTS resulted in a delay. KKOL was silent for a short period of time, then resumed it’s temporary signal in order to remained licensed. For the past two weeks, both KLFE & KNTS have been signing off at sunset most evenings so that engineers could install the new “combiner” which makes it possible for all 3 signals to radiate properly at their assigned power levels using a common set of towers. At times, KKOL has been temporarily simulcasting KNTS Spanish religion “Radio Luz” programming during this test phase. KKOL was forced to make this change due to potentially lethal consequences involving it’s power levels from it’s original transmit site. It originally ran 50 kW days & 47 kW nights from an industrial site at the Port of Tacoma but ran into trouble resulting from the near proximity of fuel tank storage electronic controls. From the KLFE/KNTS transmitter site on Bainbridge Island, KKOL will be running 50 kW days & 3.2 kW nights. Testing appears to be complete & all 3 signals are back to normal operation.
