KWSX

KWSX

Stockton, California
Broadcast area	Stockton, California
Frequency	1280 kHz
Branding	Fox Sports AM 1280
Programming
Format	Sports talk
Affiliations	Fox Sports Radio
Ownership
Owner	iHeartMedia, Inc. (Capstar TX LLC)
Sister stations	KFIV, KJSN, KQOD, KOSO
History
First air date	1947
Technical information
Facility ID	32214
Class	B
Power	1,000 watts day 1,000 watts night
Transmitter coordinates	37°58′58″N 121°13′46″W
Links
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	foxsportsam1280.iheart.com

KWSX (1280 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Sports talk format. Licensed to Stockton, California, United States, it serves the Stockton area. The station is currently owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. Its studios are in Modesto and its transmitter is in Stockton.

Until June 10, 2018, KWSX operated as a full simulcast of sister station KFIV in Modesto, California. As such, it featured programming provided from Fox News Radio, Premiere Radio Networks and Talk Radio Network. Shows heard on KWSX included The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Coast to Coast AM, Cigar Dave, and a local show entitled The Kevin Fox Show with Kevin Fox.

KWSX serves as the flagship station of the Stockton Ports, the Single-A Minor league baseball team affiliate of the Oakland Athletics as well as UOP Basketball. With the change in branding to "Power Talk", the simulcast of Sacramento's Armstrong & Getty show was dropped from the lineup.

On June 11, 2018 KWSX dropped sister station's KFIV simulcast and became an affiliate of Fox Sports Radio thus rebranding as "Fox Sports AM 1280".

History

As KXOB

KWSX was originally KXOB. In December 1946, founding company Valley Broadcasting Company (VBC) was granted a construction permit to put a new AM station on the air in Stockton at 1280 with 1,000 watts, directional to the west at night. This new AM station would sign on in the spring of 1947 with the call sign KXOB, co-owned with KXOA in Sacramento and KXOC in Chico. VBC partners were: Lincoln Dellar, Executive Director (90%), and Morton Sidley (10%). KXOB's offices and studios were originally at 2013 Pacific Avenue in Stockton with the transmitter site at Beyer Lane and East Harding Way, northeast of Stockton. In the fall of 1950, studio facilities were moved to the Beyer Lane transmitter site, presumably as a cost-cutting measure.

April 1952 saw KXOB's first change in ownership as radio and newspaper executive Clem John Randau bought KXOB from Lincoln Dellar for $200,000. The FCC approved the transaction on July 10, 1952. Clem and Beatrice Randau owned 55% of KXOB with other principals Sherrill Corwin, Ralph Stolkin, and Edward G. Burke, Jr., doing business as Hotel Stockton Broadcasting. Mr. Randau also owned minority stock in New York radio station WNEW. Randau moved 1280 to its heritage, legendary storefront location at the northeast corner of El Dorado Street and Weber Avenue—The Hotel Stockton. The station would occupy this highly visible, landmark address within sight of the head of the Stockton Channel for over 40 years.

Randau's ownership of KXOB did not last long, however. On September 9, 1953, the FCC approved the sale of KXOB to 36-year-old Joseph Gamble, in whose family the station would remain into the 1990s. Gamble's brother-in-law and former newspaper reporter, Ort J. Lofthus, then-Sales Manager of KCMJ, Palm Springs, another of Gamble's stations, was brought to Stockton to head KXOB as General Manager.

As KJOY

Sometime between the fall of 1953 and the fall of 1956, KXOB became KJOY, with the company's DBA ("doing business as") changing, in turn, to "KJOY, Inc." This DBA did not last long, either; on October 30, 1956, the DBA became "Joseph Gamble Stations, Inc."

On November 29, 1963, tragedy befell KJOY and the Gamble family: owner Joseph, age 46, suffered a fatal heart attack at KJOY's Hotel Stockton offices. GM Ort Lofthus was elected president of Joseph Gamble Stations (KJOY, Stockton; KJAY, Sacramento; and KLAN, Lemoore).

In February 1968, Joseph Gamble Stations requested the KJAX callsign for KJOY's new FM sister station at 99.3 MHz. This would be the 2nd time Gamble Stations would have this call sign: the first being 1150 KJAX in Santa Rosa in 1958. When Gamble Stations sold the 1150 license in 1963, the new owners changed the call letters to KPLS.

In KJOY's early years, some notable personalities included such names as Mort Cooper, Jim Tracewell, Ken Wayne, Ron Reynolds, Ted Payne, Denny Kirwan and Rick Cimino, with Spencer Tyler and Jerry Simpson in the KJOY News Department. Airing in the early and mid-1960s would be names such as Terry Rose, Ken Minyard and Mac MacGregor, then later still, Don Imus (1969), Mike Wynn, Roy Williams, Dave Bowling, David Allan Kraham, Al "the Roadrunner" Heathman, Pat Kelley, Bill Bishofberger, Johnny Milford, John Willyard, Chrys Fasoli, Sheilah Bowman, Bill Daniels, Steve Young, Jerry Fuentes, Steve Blum as News Director, Bob Tilden, Scott Thomas, Terry Nelson, et al.

KWSX former Powertalk logo used until June 10, 2018

External links

• Facility details for Facility ID KWSX ({{{2}}}) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
• {{{2}}} in Nielsen Audio's AM station database