Broadcast area Albuquerque area First air date 1953 | Frequency 1150 kHz Format silent | |
City Albuquerque, New Mexico Power 5,000 watts day
500 watts night | ||
KDEF (1150 AM) was a radio station licensed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, the station served the Albuquerque area. The station was last owned by Ramh Corporation.
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In March, 2015 KDEF was granted an FCC construction permit to triplex at the KSVA/KRZY (AM) transmitter site. The day power will be 1,500 watts and the night power will be 105 watts.
History
In 1976 1150 started an all-news format as KNWZ. It featured both local news as well as news from CBS Radio.
The station was KDRM on February 2, 1981. On March 6, 1981, the station changed its call sign to KDQQ, and on April 1, 1982, to KDEF.
1997–1999
Sports/Talk with live college sports featuring New Mexico State University and local high school games. On air shows featured hosts Henry Tafoya in the morning drive and Dominic Zarella on afternoon drive. Afternoons and live sports was produced and directed by Brian (Douglas) Spieker, who is currently employed by Delicate Thunder Broadcast Audio as a consultant and contracting producer/technical engineer specializing in the News/Talk/Sports and News and Information formats by 5 groups (11 stations) across Minnesota, North Dakota and, Wisconsin.
2000–2002
The format changed to Radio Disney which featured music formatting for the 12- to 18-year-old demographic. KDEF continued carrying college and high school games in the evening.
2005
KDEF flipped to an oldies format and still carries high school and some NMSU sports. The station had gone through various changes in recent years including a Spanish language music format just before flipping back to the sports talk format in early 2012 which featured programming from Yahoo! Sports Radio.
Loss of license
On June 27, 2013, the station filed an application for Suspension of Operations/Request for Silent STA with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The reason given was that it had lost the use of its licensed antenna site and that a new site had been found. It was granted on August 23, 2013. KDEF's license expired on October 1, 2013, for failure to file an application for renewal. It was deleted from the FCC database. The FCC wrote the following letter on September 30, 2013:
Dear Counsel: The license for the above-referenced station will expire on October 1, 2013. An application for renewal of this station's license should have been filed by June 1, 2013, and had not been filed as of the date of this letter. Accordingly, on October 1, 2013, the station's license will expire by its own terms. All authority to operate Station KDEF(AM) will be terminated and the call letters will be deleted from the Commission's database. Accordingly, all authority to operate station KDEF(AM), Albuquerque, NM, IS TERMINATED and the call letters ARE DELETED as of October 1, 2013. Any operation of this facility after that date is unauthorized. We note that it is imperative to the safety of air navigation that any prescribed painting and illumination of the station's tower be maintained until the tower is dismantled. Therefore, the owner of the tower where the referenced station's transmitting antenna is located must maintain the tower in the manner prescribed by the Commission's rules and the terms of the expired license.Sincerely,
[signed]
Peter H. Doyle
Chief, Audio Division
Media Bureau
Starting October 2, 2013, the FCC database stated "Deleted facility record. Deleted facilities cannot be reactivated. Interested parties must file an application for construction permit during the appropriate AM application filing window". However, on October 24, 2013, the FCC accepted for filing a renewal of the KDEF license.