KXBR (Missouri)

KRFG, taking its callsign from its name "Radio Free Greenfield", went on the air in 1974.[1] It was owned by the Watkins Investment Company and broadcast with 2.35 kW effective radiated power from a transmitter 2.7 miles (4.3 km) outside of Greenfield. In October 1976, it began being broadcast on 10-watt translator K296AS at 107.1 MHz transmitting from atop the Sunvilla Towers in Springfield, owned by attorney Kent Wooldridge.[2][3] As KRFG, the station had a mixed format with album-oriented rock programs during the evening but lighter fare during the day, as well as local high school and Missouri Tigers football.[2]

In 1984, the Mach Broadcasting Company acquired KRFG for $165,000. Mach was owned by Mark Allen, a former radio announcer in Denver.[4] The station's callsign changed to KORX upon closure of the sale.[5] A year later, Mach sold KORX to Burkett H. and Elizabeth Wamsley, doing business as Coppertone Communications, for $300,000. The sale made KRFG a sister station to KCKX in Stayton, Oregon.[6] Watkins would later sue Allen and the Wamsleys.[7]

Coppertone entered receivership in 1987, with KORX signing off July 15, 1986,[7] and federal receiver Johnie Jones was appointed to find a buyer. KXBR, Inc., a new company owned by Christopher Devine's Devine Communications alongside stations in Utah, New Mexico and New York, acquired the station for $250,000;[8] upon closing, in January 1988, the new licensee's name became the basis for the station's call sign of KXBR.

The new callsign ushered in an era of technical and financial difficulties. In March, the station went off the air to relocate its transmitter to the east, near Everton, and lost the 107.1 translator to a simulcast of KKUZ in Joplin.[3] The station went off the air again at the end of September to complete the move; days later, the station was robbed, with thieves stealing cassette players, a stereo receiver, and other radio and office equipment.[9]

KXBR completed construction on the facility February 2, 1989.[10] However, the station's payment problems continued. In June, an outdoor advertising company with which the station had done business painted a billboard reading "KXBR does not pay their bills, beware of rubber checks".[11] On July 9, 1989, landlord Lois DeClue, claiming the station was four months behind on its lease payments, used a bulldozer to block the transmitter shed with large tree trunks, then buried the building under six feet of earth.[12] The station was able to obtain a restraining order from a local judge and resumed operations the next day.[12] A week later, however, the restraining order was dissolved, and KXBR's operations manager was arrested for stopping a $900 payment for the installation of an antenna on the station's studio-transmitter link tower.[13] In February 1990, a court ruled KXBR had to pay DeClue $25,000 and vacate her property,[14] with the station ceasing broadcasts in the spring of 1990.[15]

The license remained active for several more years; the station filed later in 1990 to relocate its tower. In February 1993, the station was successful in its petition to be relocated to 107.7 MHz.[16] However, the facility was deleted on April 6, 1994.

• FCC History Cards for KXBR