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This is a page I have been wanting to do for long time. This is the first version of it and I hope to add a few items and pictures in the future. All of us in radio have that defining moment when the broadcasting bug bites us and invades our soul. It grabs us and won't let us go. Some of us know at a very early age that radio is the future. They remember listening to radio as a child and imitating what they hear. Others, like myself, wait until they are older. No matter what age, at some point it finds you.

My moment of revelation came when I was a sophomore in high school. I listened to the radio but never really thought about what the heck went on behind the mic. I was just learning about electronics and was fascinated with computers. Big boxes with flashing lights and punch cards, just like on T.V. I signed up for the electronics course (this was in the days when schools in California had enough money for courses other than the basics, but I'm dating myself with comments like that) and after awhile the instructor decided I knew enough not to electrocute myself, so he told me about how the student radio station needed a chief engineer for next year and would I be interested. To make a long story short, I went down to the studios, introduced myself, spun a few records and was hooked. Radio, I knew, was going to be my life. I have never looked back. Well, that isn't true. I occasionally wonder about that early love of computers. I gave them up and concentrated on radio. Little did I know that the computer boom was around the corner (this was 1970). I sometimes picture what would have happened if I had continued with computers....large silicon valley company, 45,000 square foot houses, a different car for every day of the year, hmmm, oh well. Anyway, after this long intro, here is the story of Pinole Valley High Schools own little bootleg radio station. If the story seems to be a little schmaltzy at times forgive me.

KPVH began life in 1970. It was the brain child of Keith Davidson. Keith and his pals, Gary Paddock, Richard Thornton and Jim Matthews, convinced the powers that were, at Pinole Valley High, that a radio station was just the thing for the student body. After knocking on the doors of every radio station in San Francisco and Oakland, they came away with some old RCA amplifiers from KNBR and some other goodies. A unused utility room was procured from the school and the station went on the "air" piping music to the cafeteria and later broadcasting at a thundering 100 milliwatts. Turntables were basic record changers and the console was built with donated attenuators and a unused steel rack panel from the electronics lab. Sometime in 1971, KPVH acquired a 35watt AM transmitter (with infamous 6146 final and modulators)and we really got going on 850kHz. The output of the transmitter fed a Navy surplus antenna matching unit (it was designed to work up to about 500kHz but we kept tweaking until we got a fair match) and this fed a twelve foot long, center loaded, antenna on the roof. The base insulator was a coke bottle and this was strapped to a convenient toilet vent. Eye bolts were attached through holes drilled in the roof (with out the schools knowledge) and rope guy wires held the whole thing up. Everytime it rained we had to run up on the roof and poor tar over whichever hole was leaking. Somehow the school never really figured out what the heck we had done to their roof. Those holes probably still leak to this day, 25 years later. We had no audio processing in the early days and had to watch a oscilloscope during our air shifts to keep an eye on the modulation.

We were able to talk some record companies into supplying us with music and when they caught on that we were a high school we got a local record store to help. Mostly it was albums we brought from home and music tastes ran the gamut.

There was no direct supervision from the electronics teacher at the time. All he cared about was that he could not hear the station at his house across the street. No problem, we pulled up the ground radials on the roof (more holes) that pointed toward his house and that made the signal noisy enough that it sounded like the little 100mW transmitter again. In other directions we had a pretty hefty signal. On a good day we could be heard in Vallejo, about 20 miles as the crow flies. This was over water and normally the signal disappeared a couple of miles from the school. In my senior year, 1972-1973, we got a new electronics teacher. The man was a genius at electronics but knew nothing about radio and we probably got away with more than we should have. Some of us actually worked out classes as teachers aides and we could hang out in the station! And get a grade for it! Sweet! I still find it hard to believe that a school could give teenagers a room with a door that closed and no supervision. During the time I was there, nothing illegal or immoral went on in the room (at least not when I was there, maybe I just missed out, story of my life), we just had fun playing radio.

In 1973, alot of petty bickering over the direction of the station caused a lot of friction between us. Friendships were made and destroyed over these differences and I was at the middle of it and one of the main agitators. Funny thing is, some of the people I had major battles with are my friends today. Somehow things that are important at 17 just don't matter when you become an adult. Jeez, sounds like a Wonder Years episode.

After our class graduated a new group came in and the station continued for a few more years. We helped them build a new console and got them some better turntables, but interest lagged and the station went away in about 1976 or 77. I don't know what happened to all of the equipment but the room went back to being a janitorial closet. My senior year electronics teacher is still there the last I heard (teaching math, no more electronics classes)and maybe I should go down there sometime and look around. As far as I know only three of us continued in radio. Some people are in electronics and others were smart and got as far away as possible from radio.

If you are a member of the FCC, I would like to point out that I really made a typo on that transmitter power. It was 35mW not 35 WATTS. I am still a little ways from retirement and would like to continue working and keep my license.

Updated 11/07/98