Berkeley’s venerable KRE was among the legacy Bay Area broadcasters to join the FM movement after World War 2. Initial paperwork was filed in 1947 seeking a new FM license.
KRE-FM went on the air Valentine’s Day 1949, simulcasting KRE’s AM programming on 102.9 MHz from a transmitter site atop Round Hill Mountain in the Berkeley hills. The Federal Communications Commission did not yet allow remote control of transmitting equipment, however, so an engineer had to be stationed at the transmitter site at all times.
The added cost of the remote engineer coupled with the slow uptake of FM by consumers left ownership saddled with a money-loser and that led to the decision to relocate the transmitter to a less-advantageous spot on KRE’s bayside property. The station was given permission to go off the air for a few months in 1950 to allow for the move. Not long after, the FCC changed its rules and allowed remote operation, but by then, the hilltop site had been sold.
Still simulcasting with KRE, KRE-FM became part of the stereo broadcasting boom in 1957 as the stations broadcast one channel on AM and the other on FM. FM multiplexing wasn’t approved until 1959; at that time, KRE-FM adopted the new technology and programs with names like Stereo Concert began to appear in newspaper radio listings.
An interesting and ironic (given KRE-FM’s early struggles) set of radio listings published in The Berkeley Gazette in December 1961 advised readers looking for programming on KRE to “See FM Log”.
The sale of KRE and KRE-FM in 1963 to Wright Broadcasting Company, owners of the successful New York area station, WPAT (Paterson, NJ) would lead to a change in call letters. On April 29, 1963 KRE-FM became KPAT-FM. The new format was a duplicate of WPAT — continuous “good music”.
KRE-FM would wind up having a second act. In 1972, under the ownership of Horizon Communications, KPAT (originally KRE) was marking its golden anniversary. The company had abandoned the “good music” format and filed for permission to reclaim its legacy call letters. In June 1972, KPAT reverted to KRE and in August of that year, KPAT-FM switched back to KRE-FM.
This new version of KRE (both AM and FM) tossed the elevator music and dove into the fusion scene. Newspaper ads called on would-be listeners to be a “mellow fellow”. The stations began to program more jazz and blues music, promoting on-air hosts like Duncan Robertson, Roy Lee Freeman, Rob Singleton, Bob Temple, Carl Heyward and Jai Smith, who hosted a program called Indigenous Soul.
KRE-FM became the first Bay Area station to broadcast using the technology from San Francisco’s Dolby Labs that allowed stations to improve both the clarity and the range of their signals.
In October 1978, Horizon Communications filed with the FCC to sell both KRE stations to Inner City Broadcasting, controlled by Percy Sutton. In early 1979, the FM call letters were changed to KBLX. The historic KRE call letters would remain on the AM airwaves until 1986.
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