SUMMARY

On 17 September 1982, the FCC granted Independent Broadcasting Corporation a construction permit to build a station at this site. A license to cover this construction permit was granted on 13 December 1984. The call at that time was KXXR. The FCC CBDS database shows that the site's assigned facility number was 26178, that the call letters KSVY were assigned to this facility on 17 July 1987, and that the license was canceled on 14 April 1999. The station went off the air in 1996 after the site was vandalized.

This station was the sucessor of KDNC/KXXR 1440, which had studios and offices at East 44th Avenue and South Havana Street in Spokane.


2007 VISIT AND PHOTO GALLERY

(click on the letters to see the corresponding photos)

Canada geese were honking, mallards were quacking, and the frogs were croaking. That was what greeted my then son-in-law-to-be, Chris Wilson and me when we visited the old KSVY 1550 site on the southeast corner of Thorpe Road and Dishman-Mica Road in Chester, Washington on 4 May 2007. Automobile access to the site was easy because there was a clear spot on the corner of the two roads which served as a parking lot.

We looked for evidence of a radio station at this site and the most obvious possible feature was a trailer house (a), which was situated in the middle of the swamp and which I had previously found in satellite photos of the site (b) (c) (d) (e) (f). There were no towers at the site on our visit. To get to the trailer we had to navigate on a path on top of a levee (g) which separated the swamp from a catch basin (h). On the roof of the trailer, a Canada goose (i) made his presence known to us by honking. The stoop in front of the trailer had seen better days. The soil around one of the footings had washed away and the stoop was at an angle (j). After testing the strength of the stoop and deciding it was strong enough to hold our weight, we climbed up and peeked inside the open door. We could see the cabinets which held the transmitter (k) as well as miscellaneous items on a couple of work benches (l). The inside of the trailer looked fairly dry and the contents were intact. There may be some historical records and memorabilia still there, but we did not take a close look.

We tried to figure out where the towers might have been. We saw three or four spots about equal distance apart which bunches of cattails were growing (m). It would make sense that those may have been the remains of the towers because the water would have to be shallower in those spots than the rest of the swamp, which would make it easier for the cattails to grow. I would like to check out historical data about the towers to test our hunch.

On Thorpe Road, we saw a bunch of boards floating in the water (n) (o) which may have been from a dock that station personnel would have used to take a boat to the towers when they had to service the towers during high water. According to newspaper articles about the site, the swamp would dry up in certain times of the year and that would affect the ground system which would in turn affect the station's signal strength and pattern.


In you have further information or anecdotes about this station that would add to the scholarship of this page, please contact me, Bill Harms, at wharms (at) philcobill.com.


Bill Harms - 4 May 2007


KXXR 1550 - 4 January 1984-
KSVY 1550 - 17 July 1987-
Chester
East Thorpe Road and Dishman Mica Road
1984 to about 1996.


KXXR - ??/??/????-1987
KSVY - 17 July 1987-1996