KEVA-AM.....Silent?

[kenglish]

I heard something about KEVA-AM, 1240 KHz in Evanston, going silent a week or so ago......
Anybody able to confirm or deny?

Probably the only AM Stereo station around these parts.

[kenglish]

From their Facebook Page:

KEVA 1240 AM:
The AM station is still undergoing a complete replacement.
Former management allowed the equipment to not be subjected to maintenance and the transmitter and other equipment just wore out from lack of care.
KEVA and the former owner are working to get a new transmitter from a supplier out of state.
In the meantime, we are on the internet and the low power FM transmitter at 93.5 and hopefully will restore the signal ASAP.

[CAwasinNJ]

That is a very curious statement on several levels. The most interesting to me is that the most recent former owner (at least as far as FCC filings are concerned) is deceased and that happened sometime prior to August 2009. Is there a sale pending that hasn't been filed yet?

[michaeljwyo]

Well I was going to start a topic to update everyone on the status but since this one is here, I'll just add to. I'll tell you guys the whole long story so bear with me.....it's been a painful mess. Owners - let me 'splain. In 1994 Jim Carol and David B. Smith partnered up to buy the station....well stationS . KOTB-FM was part of that too. In 1999 (I think) KOTB was sold off for 1.5 million to Chris Devine and Marathon. This was the start of the whole Humpy Peak theory and as we can see, it did play out. Marathon eventually sold it to Bustos and to this day 106.1 is on Humpy and owned by Bustos. Back to our story. Around 2000 or so, Kent Frandsen got CP and constructed KNYN - licensed to Fort Bridger, WY. So Jim and David did an LMA for that and that became our new FM signal. So under the ownership of Jim and David, we were KEVA-AM and KNYN-FM. About 5 years ago, David B. Smith passed away. Jim Carroll passed away about a year later. Ownership fell to the wives - Carol Carroll and Becky Smith. The beginning of the end was in the late summer of 2011 when another group came to town and basically "took" KNYN from us. They offered Kent Frandsen more money for the lease. In addition Kent also put KADQ 98.3 on the air. So that group had (and still has today) KNYN and KADQ. That left us with KEVA as a stand-alone AM. Things slowly progressed downhill from there as there wasn't as much money coming in. Got to the point where we couldn't pay a salesperson anymore and were surviving on very little. There were just 2 of us....one full-time guy and me. I was part-time and just did mornings and some engineering. I got laid off at the beginning of 2014. I left the air just before Xmas and basically never came back. Never got to say goodbye or anything. KEVA survived for a few more months....the full-time guy got laid off in April but continued to volunteer for a bit until even that didn't work for him...he needed a paying job. For about 3 months the station just ran itself. Daily programs were set to download and insert themselves automatically. The two of us former employees still had remote access to the computers and stuff so we could still get in and reset something or program something or whatever to keep things in order and we did. In July Carol asked me to turn it off. She had a lot of debt that started way back when her husband Jim was running it. He took care of the employees but apparently did not take care of other things....like payroll taxes. So with the huge debts, Carol was done and said to just shut it off. She was going to let the license go and let the IRS come and repo or liquidate or whatever they do. I posted a message on the Facebook page saying that I never got to say a proper goodbye but thanks Evanston for 60 years. That went a little viral and enter the new owners....or wannabe owners. I got a call from a guy that wanted to "save" it. He said the license was not expired even though the renewal fees from June 2013 had never been paid and it had never been renewed. He said he had talked to Carol and that they were going to take things over and try to save it. He had all kinds of great ideas. I was excited...the town was excited. It all seemed like a good thing. Well the transmitter wouldn't come back up. In August they "borrowed" a 10w FM exciter and I built an antenna for it and put it up at the station. Back on the air...not really receivable around town other than in your car or if you were on the west side of town but it was on. The guy sent his partner up from Oklahoma to manage and sell and that guy hired me back to do mornings. In the meantime numerous trips by Dennis Silver from Salt Lake to here trying to get the transmitter going didn't pan out and even HE couldn't get it going and he's been an engineer for 50 years. By the way...side note on another topic where you guys were talking about KLO. That was about the same time and why Dennis was going back and forth....along with us he was trying to fix KLO's problem....he told me they couldn't DO the directional pattern at night so they were running off of one tower and dropping power way down at night or something like that. Anyways, why the FM transmitter? Well, these guys had also worked out a deal with the University of Wyoming and UW was going to donate their translator to us so we could have an FM translator for our AM at 93.5 . So....since that was eventually where we were going to be anyway, they decided to go ahead and just broadcast there temporarily since that was gonna be our permanent home anyway. Legal? No. Never filed any STA's or anything for 93.5 or for 1240. So they guy's "partner" that he sent up from Oklahoma was an idiot and was trying big city tactics here and ended up being very dishonest and ended up trashing the station's name and killing what little respect was left. I did mornings for about a month til my paycheck bounced and then I walked. That was on September 26th. He continued his antics around town and still posting things to the facebook page....trying to bad-mouth me and claiming I stole equipment. I DID take what was mine. David B Smith actually gave ME the AM Stereo equipment back in 2003 and I installed it there on condition it could stay as long as I was there. Well, I wasn't there. The AM transmitter wasn't on the air anyway but this guy tried everything to get me. Of course it didn't work and he just made more of an ass of himself. So a few weeks ago the actual owners enter the picture. We (me and one of the owners' sons) find out that these guys had never signed any kind of agreement to be running the station. And to top that off, the idiot was going around town selling ads and shares of the station! He was telling people "pay me $1000 now and I will run 2000 ads for you and also make you 1% owner in the station" and called it the "heritage club". Sorry but you can't sell ownership shares in something you don't own. So anyways....a couple of weeks ago, that idiot got trespassed off the property. One of the owners family members who lives here in Evanston now has power of attorney over everything. The 93.5 transmitter is off....the idiot took it when he got trespassed off....yes it was his to take. Well it wasn't the station's so he took it. The AM never came back after I shut it off in July. I am once again involved with them but only to help them liquidate assets and try to get what little money they can out of what's left. We know that the owners didn't pay property taxes and the property was auctioned off and some couple bought it and basically that gives them the land and all the property on it. That deed has not been perfected yet so it's still Carol and Becky that own it so for their sake, we're selling what we can while it's still ours to sell. I'm not sure how we're gonna ship some of those things. There at things like the McMartin transmitter that "if you want it come and get it" will probably be the case. We have a VERY nice Radio Systems slider-pot board but it's huge. I can't imagine how we're gonna ship that. Other things that can be shipped are things like the Belar FM RF Amp, Belar FM Modulation Monitor, McMartin FM Stereo Monitor, Burk ARC-16 remote control....anyways I've taken up enough of your time. That's the whole story. It's gone. It's done and I don't think there will be any saving now. I don't think it CAN be saved at this point. I don't think the license is expired yet....and I don't know if there'd be anyone interested in convincing Carol to sell it. From what I understand, the license is not part of the "personal property" that goes with the property tax auction.

Whew!

Michael n Wyo

[CAwasinNJ]

That's a fascinating story. Thank you very much for sharing. I'm sorry things didn't work out for you and the station, but at least you know where things stand now. That was a really nice thing that you're doing trying to help out even though there isn't much in it for you. It sounds like a complete train wreck.

The FCC says that the license renewal for 1240 was accepted for filing back in June of 2013, but never went through. If the fee was never paid that would make sense. The license itself expired Oct 1 2013, so it probably doesn't have authority to be on the air anyway. There's also no sign of any silent STA and if it's been down since July that's yet another problem. Unfortunately it sounds like cutting their losses might be the best option right now. Given that the license has been expired for over a year now the FCC might just declare it deleted when they notice it anyway.

Again, thanks for sharing the story. I hope things are looking up for you.