Pittsburgh Radio: KQV Now Airing E-Z Music

Pittsburgh’s KQV 1410 AM, the former news-talk station that reigned as a pop-music giant in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, is back. KQV remained an all-news station from 1975 until its sign-off 42 years later.

The Post-Gazette reports as of December 19, 2019, KQV is simulcasting 'beautiful music from sister-station WKGO in nearby McKeesport.

You may recall KQV went dark on New Year’s Eve 2017 .

Robert Stevens, whose Broadcast Communications Inc. purchased KQV from the Dickey family’s Calvary Inc., said the station's News formet “could be a good thing but if we ever do that, we really have to look very carefully.

“There is a reason that Bob Dickey turned that off, and one of the reasons was it became a real challenge to make the [financial] numbers work.

“We don’t want to dive in without taking a good look at that.”

KQV had actually returned a couple of times since the sale to satisfy the FCC’s mandate that it could not go an entire year without being on air at least temporarily. Robert and wife Ashley Stevens have since transferred KQV to their not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization, Broadcast Educational Communications.

The sale of KQV did not include the broadcast towers or the site property in the North Hills. Instead, equipment was moved, reconstructed and updated at BEC’s WKGO 88.1 FM broadcast tower in North Versailles.

“It took a lot because they had to move the transmitter,” said Eric O’Brien, WKGO program director. “The effort that took was amazing in size. The [transmitter] unit is as tall as you or I, maybe more than five feet, but the work is getting the antenna on the tower.”

KQV 1410 AM (5 Kw, DA2) (Courtesy of Radio-Locator)

Installing a diplexer, which allows two stations to broadcast different signals at the same time from one antenna, added to the work. KQV is being diplexed with BCI’s WEDO 810 AM, McKeesport.