After nearly 85 years of broadcasting from a site north of Albuquerque, Cumulus Media’s 770 KKOB(AM) moved its transmitting location in September and is operating at 1 kW both day and night from a long-wire antenna.
Cumulus said it plans to return to its licensed 50 kW daytime from a new site in 2026, though it is unlikely the station will return to that same power level at night. KKOB is one of only two 50 kW AM stations in New Mexico, with 1020 KCKN in Roswell, which also runs a directional 50 kW at night to protect KDKA(AM), being the other.
KKOB’s temporary setup is part of the ramifications the heritage station is facing following a hot-air balloon that struck its 645-foot daytime tower during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in October 2024.
History of the two-tower site
The popular balloon fiesta began in 1972, ironically, as a highlight of a 50th birthday celebration for the station — then known as KOB. For the last 41 years, the festival has been held at Fiesta Park, approximately one mile from KKOB’s now former two-tower site.
The site, on 2nd Street NW about eight miles north of downtown Albuquerque, dated back to 1941, according to Scott Fybush.
The station moved to 770 AM in 1941, and it set of a back-and-forth with the “other” 770, in New York City, formerly WJZ and then WABC(AM). It ultimately resulted in its 50 kW directional nighttime pattern with a null toward New York.
Its 645-foot daytime tower dated back nearly to 1941, according to Fybush, while its 443-foot nighttime tower went up sometime in the 1980s, around when the station upgraded to 50 kW nights.
[Related: “Synchronous AM’s Long and Tortuous History”]
Since the state capital of Santa Fe is in the direction of the New York null, KKOB uses an experimental 250-watt synchronous booster there.
Not the first collision
Notably, in October 2004 during the festival, a Smokey Bear balloon with three passengers on board — all surviving — struck the station’s daytime tower.
Twenty years later, it happened again, and the balloon caused the tower to collapse. No one was hurt, and Cumulus moved KKOB’s operations to its nighttime directional tower, using 25 kW during the day and 12.5 kW at night.
But on Sept. 25, crews removed that second nighttime tower for KKOB from the site. You can watch a KOAT(TV) video of the tower being taken down.
According to KRQE(TV), the festival purchased the tower site property from Vertical Bridge, the site’s owner, earlier this year, and it sought to remove the remaining tower, citing safety concerns.
As a result, Cumulus filed for a special temporary authority this summer to move KKOB’s broadcast operations to the FM broadcast site of 95.1 KABQ(FM) and 101.3 KYLZ(FM), west of Albuquerque along Interstate 40.
Return to 50 kW daytime
The station is now operating under an STA at 1 kW both daytime and nighttime on the Vertical Bridge-owned tower. That tower is being fed with a single flared-skirt wire.
According to Cumulus VP of Engineering Robert Combs, the company’s plan is to return to 50 kW daytime from a new site to begin after the first of the year.
But Combs said that KKOB will likely need to keep power below 50 kW at night at the new site, citing protection that is needed for other co-channel stations.
Cumulus filed a license modification in July to triplex KKOB from the existing 1050 KTBL(AM) and 1510 KOAZ(AM) three-tower array, southwest of Albuquerque, running 50 kW day and 5 kW directional at night. The non-directional daytime operation of KKOB would use the center tower of the KTBL array, while the nighttime directional operation would use the two end towers.
KKOB also began simulcasting on the full-market signal of 96.3 FM from Sandia Crest in 2020.
With both AM towers now gone, officials said the land will be cleared out and used as a safe landing zone this year, according to KRQE.
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