The Bay Area had two radio stations with the call letters KHTT in the 1980s. One was on the AM band in the South Bay; the other on the FM band in the North Bay.
The AM KHTT came first, arriving on the scene in September 1982 when owner Sterling Recreation Organization did away with the heritage call letters KXRX, heard in San Jose since the station first began broadcasting in 1948. A year and a half earlier, KXRX had killed its news-talk format and switch to an MOR music format.
The switch to KHTT brought new branding: “K-Hit” aired a CHR (contemporary hit radio) format. The format change didn’t change the station’s fortunes; KHTT remained near the bottom of the San Jose Arbitron ratings. When Narragansett Broadcasting Company bought the station in the summer of 1985, it switched to an oldies format.
KHTT carried San Jose State University football and basketball at various times between 1985 and 1990.
In 1989, Narragansett changed the call letters to KSJX and installed a business news format. The KHTT call letters would soon be picked up by Fuller-Jeffery Broadcasting, which installed them on its Santa Rosa FM station previously known as KREO.
