Broadcast area Greater Houston First air date July 31, 1961 Frequency 1010 kHz Owner Univision Branding La Tremenda 1010 AM | Repeater(s) 104.9 KAMA-FM HD2 Language(s) Spanish City of license Houston Area Greater Houston | |
 | ||
Audience share 0.3 (January 2017, Nielsen Audio[1]) Power 5,000 Watts (day)
3,600 Watts (night) Format Talk radio, All-news radio Sister stations KLTN, KOVE-FM, KAMA-FM, KQBU-FM, KXLN-DT, KFTH-DT | ||
KLAT (1010 AM), branded as "Amor Celestial 10-10 y 104.9 HD2", is a Spanish language Christian radio station in the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area. It is currently owned by Univision.
Contents
The station also serves as the Spanish radio flagship of the Houston Astros and the Houston Texans. KLAT has studios in Uptown Houston and the transmitter site is in northeast Houston.
Birth of 1010 KODA
1010 KLAT signed on as KODA July 31, 1961 by Paul Taft of the Taft Broadcasting Company [2] (no relation to Taft Broadcasting of Cincinnati, Ohio) in order to reach a mainstream audience who, at the time, mostly had AM-only radios. KODA had already operated on FM radio at 99.1 megahertz since 1958 when the former KPRC-FM, then KODA-FM (now KODA), was acquired. Both stations broadcast a simulcast beautiful music format (competing with KXYZ) and brought back ABC Radio network programs to Houston. Several years before, KXYZ dropped the ABC Radio affiliation, which resulted in the network only being aired on the eastern rimshot 1360 KWBA (now KWWJ) Baytown, Texas until KODA's sign-on. KODA was a daytimer in the beginning of its existence, meaning Taft could operate the medium wave station only in the daytime (presently licensed as "Class D") while the FM simulcasted the AM station during the day and continued the programming during the overnight hours when the AM station had to shutoff at sunset.
KODA Becomes "La Tremenda"
In 1978, Group W Westinghouse Broadcasting purchased the stations from Taft and quickly re-sold the AM station. The KODA calls were then changed to KLAT in 1979, along with the format flipping to popular Spanish language music, branded as "La Tremenda". The name La Tremenda 1010 (which translates literally to "The Tremendous 1010") was a slogan created by the station's founders Marcos Rodriguez, Sr. and Marcos A. Rodriguez.
The station eventually obtained authorization for 24-hour operation ("Class B" status) in 1984. That site was subject to a late 1979 fire when a Harris MW-5 transmitter melted down. The MW-5 used a step up transformer to raise the three phase input power (at 240 volts) to 17,000 volts. The primary wiring had been bundled closely to the secondary wiring and tightly lashed together. When an insulation breakdown allowed the input wiring to arc, the high temperatures allowed the secondary wires to short to the inputs. This caused extremely high circulating currents and a meltdown of the transformer frame (made of metal castings and laminations).
To add night authority, a seventh tower was added to the array. This was used with five of the existing day towers to make a new parallelogram shaped system. KLAT began night operation at 1,000 watts. This properly protected all stations on 1010 as required by FCC rules but did not cover all of Houston. This particular authorization was allowed under a waiver for the then minority owned station. Later on, the station received special authority from the F.C.C. to mitigate interference at night from foreign stations (as many south Florida stations get a break from Cuban interference see WAXY South Miami). This STA (special temporary authority) allowed the station to operate at 5,000 watts at night (using all 7 towers). This improved coverage but did not make it 100%.
In 1995 the station built a second tower site in north west Houston, using six towers and 3,600 watts for night only operation. The lowered power did not cover quite as large an area as the former setup but because of a better location covered more of Houston much better. The project used several consultants, ending with duTreil, Lundin and Rackley.
Recent and Future KLAT Programming
KLAT was a part of the Univision America Talk Radio network until July 17, 2015, at which time the news/talk format was dropped and replaced by the current Spanish Christian format "Amor Celestial" which translates to "Heavenly Love".
On December 20th, 2016, Univision announced that KLAT would be one of the charter affiliates of their new Spanish-language sports network, Univision Deportes Radio; the launch is currently set for early 2017.