KWSS was born on January 17, 1983 when Gilroy’s legendary gonzo station KFAT disappeared into radio history. The new Las Vegas-based owners, Western Cities Broadcasting, had paid $3.6 million to buy KFAT and install a “hot hits” music format under general manager Palmer Pyle.
Only one disc jockey made the transition from KFAT to KWSS: Steven Seaweed. While the station’s license remained in Gilroy and the transmitter was high atop Mt. Madonna, the studios were in the Paseo de Saratoga shopping center in San Jose.
Within a year, KWSS had risen to the second spot in the San Jose Arbitron ratings, besting every other South Bay station and trailing only San Francisco-based KGO. Former staff members such as John Mack Flanagan and Steve Scott (a newsman who would later spent many years at WCBS in New York) recall an aggressive management team as well as an engineering staff that took great pains to produce a high-fidelity stereo signal that sounded great in cars in the years before the compact disc became commonplace.
Bill Kelly and Al Klein (“Kelly and Klein”) held down the morning shift for six years, departing in 1989.
KWSS occupied the 94.5 FM frequency slot licensed to Gilroy between 1983 and March 1991. Afterwards, it became KUFX (K-FOX). The KUFX call letters would move twice more before settling at 98.5 on the dial.
