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KWEI Radio

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556 Highway 95
(Click Image for Enlargement, if available)
Construction Permit - 1947
KWEI Flood
Flood in 1971
 From Weiser Signal American – January 1, 1953
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History of KWEI Radio

(Click Image for Enlargement, if available)
KWEI Logo
In December 1947, the station first signed on, using the call sign KWEI and broadcasting on 1240 kilocycles. On February 25, 2011, the call sign was changed to KTRP; that March, the station changed to a classic country format. The KWEI call sign returned on March 25, 2014 (swapping with 1450 AM); on April 17, 2014, the station adopted a Spanish language format.
On May 12, 2016, Educational Media Foundation purchased KKOO and KWEI. Both stations became K-Love affiliates and sister stations to Air1 affiliate KARO. EMF took control of both stations on September 1, 2016; that day, KWEI began stunting.
KWEI changed the call sign to KBXN on November 28, 2018. It changed the call sign to KKOO on March 12, 2019, and picked up the “Kool FM” oldies format from 1380 AM Ontario, Oregon. The station at 1380 switched its call sign to KBXN and went dark in June 2019.
From Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia
Unfortunately, KWEI is no longer broadcasting.
From Streema Radio
History
First air date
December 1947; 76 years ago (as KWEI at 1240)
Former call signs
KWEI (1947–2011)
KTRP (2011–2014)
KWEI (2014–2018)
KBXN (2018–2019)
KKOO (2019– )
Former frequencies
1240 kHz (1947–1957)
1220 kHz (1957–1959)
 
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Weiser Radio Station Adopts New Format
(Click Image for Enlargement, if available)
KWEI Construction Sketch
WEISER — When radio station KWEI changed hands last weekend, the 35-year-old station acquired a new format and a new philosophy.
“We want to change the station’s image by adding more of a regional outlook,” said Doug Raper, the station’s new general manager and co-owner. “The station has always been just a ‘Weiser station.’ We will still be active in Weiser, but we want to be involved in the whole area, including Payette and Ontario (Ore.).”
Raper and Danny Kramer bought the station last month and took control Saturday. The “middle-of-the-road” format that Raper said the station had used for several years was replaced Monday morning with contemporary Country music.
Raper is a former news announcer for radio stations in Boise, Denver, and Salt Lake City. He said he had wanted to own a station since he was a student at Boise State University in 1968.
Kramer is a disc jockey at KSL radio in Salt Lake City. Although he is co-owner, he will not work at KWEI, Raper said.
Raper said the change in format was based on questionnaires he sent out earlier this year to Weiser residents.
The responses to the questionnaire indicated listeners preferred country music and wanted more news and public affairs programs, Raper said.
So Raper has added news spots in the morning and afternoon and a call-in talk show from 11 a.m. until noon Monday through Friday. The program will feature interviews with people involved with political and social issues, Raper said.
The Spanish-language program will be discontinued weekdays but will continue on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to noon.
The station went into receivership in January 1980. Ed Miller, one of the station’s original owners who had sold the station in 1975, was named executor.
FCC approval of the sale was granted July 15 and the sale was completed 16 days later for $160,000, Miller said.
One person who is not happy with the change is Donna Thomason, owner of Northam-Jones Funeral Home in Weiser. The new owners eliminated the five-minute daily advertising spot that the funeral home had purchased to announce Washington, Adams, and Payette county obituaries. The funeral home has purchased the spot almost since the station went on the air, Thomason said.
Raper said the obituaries appealed to a limited audience and did not fit the new format. Ontario radio station KYET has agreed to broadcast the obituaries, Raper said.
KWEI was built in 1946 for about $50,000 by a group of Weiser residents, Miller said. Miller and a partner bought out the other shareholders in 1952. Miller became sole owner in 1960, when he bought out his partner.
Miller ran the station until he sold it in 1975. He said he still holds equity in the station, but has no operating interest.
Miller called the format changes “a good move in the right direction.”
Raper said he hoped to have the station showing a profit within six months.
From The Idaho Statesman – Thursday, August 6, 1981 – Page 3B
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Weiser Radio Station gets Facelift “from the top down.”
Shane Shumacker (left) and Harry Ferguson (right) of ‘A to Z Towers,’ scale the radio tower of KWEI radio in Weiser. The painting of the tower is the first installment of the restoration of the radio facilities planned by the owners.
WEISER – The white building sitting along U.S. Highway 95 near Weiser looks like a cross between a Spanish-style church and an odd house.
Recent research, though, shows the odd architecture – known as “moderne” and built in 1947 – has housed a radio station of one type or another for many years.
Long neglected, and with weeds growing up around the walkway, the KWEI-AM station is on the verge of a rebirth. The first step of the improvements was the painting of the 200 foot aerial tower on Friday.
At 3:30 p.m., Harry Ferguson and Shane Shumacker of “A to Z Towers” began the climb of the steel tower armed with paint buckets and safety equipment. It would take approximately one hour to reach the top of the tower and begin the long, downward painting task.
Ferguson is a journeyman when it comes to climbing towers. Working for years in Las Vegas, he recently moved to Pocatello and opened the business. His fellow tower climber, Shumacker, is a newcomer to the world of aerials. A 36-year-old freshman majoring in pre-law at Idaho State University, for him, this is a summer job.
“We always have two people on the tower at all times for safety,” Ferguson said.
Once the tower is completed, revitalization will begin on the building according to Ron Prado, vice-president of the station.
“We want to restore the property back to its heyday,” Prado said. “We are looking at having the building placed on the historical register. We hope to have the building and property restored by way of fresh paint, extensive landscaping and complete interior restoration and hopefully transform both floors inside accommodating a full working staff of DJs.”
Currently, the Spanish radio station is served via a sister Spanish station in Boise. Programs are electronically shipped to Weiser for airplay on the AM station. An in-house DJ has not been in the station for some time.
Originally a country-western station, the walls are filled with memorabilia of both country and Spanish music stars.
A walk through the old offices and DJ booth takes a visitor back into the 1970s and earlier. Fourty-fives and LPs pack the shelves with names long forgotten. Names of callers into the various radio shows lay scattered about the floor.
“We are excited to be able to enhance the beauty of this wonderful community,” Prado said of the company’s plans to bring the building and the radio station back to prominence.
From Ontario Argus Observer – Ontario, OR – August 8, 2005
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Rupert Radio Station Owner is a Weiser KWEI Pioneer
RUPERT — Mervin Ling, owner of radio station KAYT in Rupert, is something of a pioneer in the automatic broadcasting equipment field.
Mr. Ling has been in radio since 1948 and began broadcasting in 1952 when he bought a station at Weiser (KWEI).
He had planned the station in Rupert since 1950 when he acquired the property where the station was later built.
KAYT went on the air October 12, 1955, broadcasting at a frequency of 970 kilocycles with power of 1,000 watts, from 6 a.m. to local sunset.
Mr. Ling’s was one of the first stations in Idaho to convert to automation in any form. He and the engineer at the Weiser station, Ed Miller, began building their own forms of automation before manufacturers had it on the market.
At one time they were manufacturing and selling some of the automatic devices which they invented. One piece of equipment which they built and sold was an automatic gain amplifier which controls volume. An announcer can talk either softly or loudly and the output remains constant.
Other equipment which they built was used for automatic switching to change from tapes of commercials, announcements, etc., to music.
Manufacturers could see the importance of such equipment to small stations as well as the large ones and since have made great advancements in this field.
KAYT broadcasts with a hi-fi signal. The station owner says that in the old days the sound didn’t have to be good but now many people have hi-fi sets and stereos in their homes and are too conscious of the quality of sound to ignore it.
From Twin Falls Times-News – March 29-30, 1968
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