Here’s a brief moment in time of a station I’ve never heard of before – KQXE. I had to look it up. There is apparently an FM station in Texas with those calls today, but in 1977, judging from this all-to-short recording, this was a kick-butt sounding hit radio station.
The jock is Phil Gardner, a name which rings familiar somehow. Gardner is an excellent jock, does produced skits for his show as was customary for the mid/late 70s (kinda hokey by todays standards) and… The first jingle cut sings Phil Gardner Superstar! Is he? That’s for you to judge. And, was that a 70s Gwinsound or TM cut? Somebody out there knows.
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I can answer the jingle question. It was TM’s “You” package. (The “superstar” jingle came from WGAR/Cleveland when Phil was there). I was the PD of KQXE at that time. 5kw at 1310 licensed to Mesa, AZ. Made it’s debut New Years day 1977 and only lasted less than two years. Music on AM was dying…we had little chance to succeed..too late to make an impact. Gardner was our afternoon guy, and had recently done nights at WGAR Cleveland prior to this. Dave Otto did mornings at KQXE at the time as well. Both extremely talented guys.
(I used my real name as PD…Phil Baykian).
Phil Barry
VP/General Manager
Dial Global Formats
Denver, CO
I loved both Crazy Dave and Phil Gardner and Mr. Baykian our beloved p.d. and assorted others at KQXE. It was my pleasure to work nights and evenings. What a group
I too loved the station as I worked first as the receptionist/traffic person, then went into working the morning news in its final months. Phil Baykian was an awesome PD and fun to work with. I loved all the jocks, Phil Gardner, Dave Otto, Bob Baillie, Mark James and more……
KQXE was the AM half of an easy-listening combo known as KBUZ-AM/FM (or K-Buzz). The frequencies were 1310 AM and 104.7 FM. As Phil Barry (see above) notes, the AM went top-40 on New Year’s Day of 1977 (the FM would do an automated soft AOR format with the callsign KIOG). My memory is that both stations continued broadcasting until 1980, then went silent for a few weeks with the launch of KZZP-AM/FM taking their place (Steve Goddard was the 1st jock heard on that station). Today, the AM is known as KXAM and runs an all-talk format.
While Phil is right about the station’s day-time signal, it should be noted that the power was much lower at night. The station could not be heard in most of west Phoenix after sunset and had a poor to fair signal where I lived in north central Phoenix. The parts of the Phoenix area that received an excellent signal from the station after sundown were the southeastern suburbs (including Mesa where the transmitter was located). KQXE was also competing on and off with KRIZ, KOPA, KUPD and KRUX, all of which were able to cover the station’s target area with fair-to-good signals.
At night, at the Thomas Mall studios, we sometimes would lose the off air signal altogether. At best, there were other skip signals we could hear in the background on the air monitor. We operated with 500 watts at night and directional north and south, if I remember. It was essentially a Mesa signal after dark. Having said that, our engineer, Gerry Thomas did a wonderful job maximizing that facility’s potential! In retrospect, I’ve always thought we should have launched that programming on the FM (104.7) side, which was a full “C” in Phoenix. All in all, we had the most talented group of jocks in the market at the time. But, nobody really knew it.
Wow! I can’t believe I found this! I was just 18 when this Station came to being. And I got to know Phil Baykian Phil Gardner and Mark James all personally at that time. I guess you could call me a station groupie at the time. The jingles, the news, the music rotation and the tone quality of this stations daytime signal was really outstanding for a 5,000 watt transmitter.My biggest memory of this station is when one time when I was visiting the Thomas Mall Studios of this station on the East side of Phoenix and Phil Baykian approached me and started reciting one of the stations Jingles that was played at the end of Lee Shostacks News saying this is quixie 13 a Saul Goldfarb Radio Station. At the time I thought Phil was messing with me when he said that. And lo and behold about a week after this incident I remember turning on my Radio and here was the Jingle being played all day that day saying “This is quixie 13 a Saul Goldfarb Radio Station followed by the music and more jingle. I will never forget this as long as I live! Thank You so much for such a great memory!
I have some sad news to report about the frequency that held KQXE some 30-odd years ago. The station under its current callsign KXAM went dark at midnight this past Wednesday. According to a story in the Arizona Republic, The station’s owner, the Gerson family, rebuffed an attempt by employees to buy the station, prefering to turn the license in to the FCC (I guess in these days of tight money, operating a station as a community service is no longer a valid option). So now farewell must be said not only to KQXE but also to 1310, the frequency which it occupied in the Phoenix market.