In this letter to the editor, the author comments the story “New Program Nourishes High-School Interest in Radio.” Comment on this or any article. Email [email protected].
Monterey High School in Lubbock, Texas, had a terrestrial radio facility as part of its electronics program. Originally an unlicensed AM “power line injector” in the 1960s, KMHS eventually became a licensed educational 10-watter with call letters KLSD, for Lubbock School District.
KLLL in Lubbock donated an old Armstrong transmitter, and its IPA section was tapped to supply the necessary low power. The first song aired was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
When the license was upgraded to 3,000 watts via a donation from McMartin, many more people were able to hear 91.1 FM — so many in fact that complaints about the call letters were received by Superintendent Ed Irons. He decided to ask the FCC for new calls and KOHM was selected.
Station promotions were led by the students. The electronics program had printed circuit screening capability, so they made a silkscreen with a unique logo. I have attached a photo of the artwork printed onto a jacket entrusted to me by the late Donald Hackler, who engineered radio facilities in San Francisco. He was a great mentor and helped me get through Fortran programming class at Texas Tech.
I’m happy that youngsters want to learn the business but it bothers me that not many are jumping into chief operations and transmission maintenance. Believe it or not, the antenna at KOHM was built by the Monterey metal shop students working from blueprints designed by Dr. Charles Burford at Texas Tech. (My air shift was called “The Cherry Pepper Program,” named for Dr. Burford’s affection for that barbecue relish!)
Our instructor Charles Wilson was a fervent ham operator and a good teacher — although transistor biasing calculations had many of us scratching our heads for a few days. I have many great memories of KOHM before it moved to Dunbar-Struggs High School in the early 1980s. It eventually faded into eternity.
— Kerns Garza, KRFE(AM), Lubbock, Texas
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