KFMR 104.9 FM Radio

Fremont, California

Coverage Map
Circa 1975

This improvised coverage map, apparently hand-drawn to show the signal pattern of Fremont’s KFMR (104.9 FM), was included in the station’s sales package during the mid-1970s.

KFMR began its life as KHYD in March 1961 under the ownership of Leon Crosby, who later owned San Francisco’s KMPX (107 FM) and KEMO-TV (Channel 20). KHYD broadcast from studios on Peralta Boulevard and a transmitter in the hills above the Niles district in Fremont, and became KFMR in August 1964.

The station became the first full-time country music station in the Bay Area on the FM dial — in stereo — in 1967. By the mid-1970s, KFMR was broadcasting brokered religious programming from studios on Williams Street in Fremont’s Centerville District.

The station switched to Spanish-language programming in 1979 as KDOS, and became KBRG in 1983, relocating its studios from Fremont to San Jose in 1989.

KBRG was switched to Classic Rock KUFX (“The Fox”) in December 1997, and began simulcasting sister station KOME (98.5) in June 1998 as KLDZ. On February 1, 1999, KLDZ became KCNL (Channel 104.9).

The station’s transmitter was moved from its original location in the Fremont hills to a new site in the hills near San Jose, and its city of license was legally changed to Sunnyvale in February 2003.

SOURCE: David Jackson Collection, Bay Area Radio Digest Archive.