Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an allegory and bestseller from 1970. There are a lot of truths in the book about doing things well and not being afraid to be different. Jack, one of our owners, considered it the philosophy on which KSND was built. He purchased copies for all original staff members and made it required reading prior to our sign-on.

I still have my copy of the book, including his inscription: Clarke, thanks for being part of our team at KSND. — J.L.S. The fable meant a lot to Jack, and it was interesting that his initials were the same as the protagonist’s. The night before sign-on we all met at Jack’s house in Depoe Bay to discuss how KSND would soar above all other stations and leave its mark on the Central Oregon Coast.

KSND had CD-quality sound. We honored the music by making it the focus of the station in two distinct ways. We didn’t talk over the beginnings of songs, and we didn’t over process the audio. These were cardinal rules.

Frankly, we didn’t talk just to hear ourselves speak when the microphone was open, either. We had a number of on-air promos running with crazy radio deejay characters yakking about all sorts of nonsense when suddenly Charlie Tuna came on over the din and reminded listeners that at KSND they heard, “all the hits without all the (MOOOOOOO sound effect)…bull,” and then into another song we went! The station even had a little inflatable bull, Buddy, that sat on the counter of the drive-up prize window — a humorous reminder that we were serious about limiting the BS.

The audio processing was a big deal for Jack and Keith, too. All audio needs to be processed before it goes on the air, as it helps keep sound levels from getting too high or too low. Unfortunately, most radio stations long ago adopted the practice of processing much heavier than necessary as a way of sounding louder. The by-product is distortion as the music loses its dynamics.

We ran an on-air promo comparing over processing to running music through a trash compactor. A simple way to explain the practice is that the high end and low end dynamics of the music are crushed, or compressed, into one level. The more the processing is cranked up, the worse the compression and audio artifacts become. This is a great website that describes basic audio processing for the lay person. It’s worth visiting just to hear the examples made using Counting Crows’ Big Yellow Taxi. Keith liked to point out that listeners had a volume knob on their radios if they wanted the music louder, but they didn’t have distortion knobs to fix the bad compression.

KSND was built to stand out from the rest of the market. Our owners were audiophiles who perfected their approach in past broadcasting jobs. The play on our call letters was K-Sound (not K-Sand!) During our evening meeting we discussed persevering to be the best, pushing beyond our perceived limits, and overcoming limited thinking. Sounds like the seagull, doesn’t it? Jack said the market couldn’t support another station. Years of research in Newport and the Lincoln County listening market had shown that KSND could make it, but another station would inevitably go out of business once we gained a foothold.

We were all excited about the launch and thrilled to be part of a very good team that was about to give the market a jolt. I mentioned to the staff that when I was looking for my first job out of college a year before, I contacted the program director at what was now going to be our direct competitor. He told me someone would have to get hit by a milk truck before there would be a job opening for me. I chuckled at our meeting that the milk truck was here…and KSND was driving it. Sweet revenge!

The meeting ended with a screening of the Jonathan Livingston Seagull movie. After it concluded we all cleared out of Jack’s place, eagerly anticipating 5:12 pm on March 23, 1995.

A few pictures:

More to come in Part IX…