A Tribute Site to the
Fabled Radio of
KABN 830 AM
The Voice of the People
Long Island, Big Lake, Ak
by W.J. Lynus O'Brien

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KABN RADIO
Friday, 03 September 2010

TALES FROM THE TOWER

Bear's Story
Friday, 20 February 2009 | Roger Leff

Bear's StoryStories about KABN radio...where does one begin? I had the priceless opportunity to spend 5 years doing the morning show at KABN...the transmitter was fired up by 5 AM when “the Golden Age of Radio would be broadcast. It was a funky series of old-time radio with the likes of “Fibber McGee and Molly” and “Abbot and Costello” gracing the early morning airwaves. After that it was 4 hours of music with Local News, Trapline Messages, the Trading Post and Ride Board...
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KABN RADIO -- THE KABN CHRONICLES
A TRIP DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE or how I became part of KABN
I was having a hard winter, my body still reacting even after three years to a head-on wreck (with fatalities) on Hwy 120 somewhere outside of Meeteesee, Wyoming six months before coming to Alaska. When I first heard KABN Radio I was at my trapline on Birch Creek a few miles south of the Arctic Circle far in the North-eastern Interior of Alaska in the middle of a record cold winter. My nerves pinching so bad I could hardly even walk, much less run a trapline, it was like a drug when I heard it, and took me down a path from which there was no getting off--
The KABN Chronicles are a revisiting of that trail that took me into the Rabbit Hole through the character of Tobias Stewart. [ see author note ] It's my hope these pages will be added to by the others that were there...

W.J. Lynus O'Brien
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KABN Groundbreaking (No, I wasn't there)

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COMMENTS AND OTHER TIDBITS
I took 1 st personal loans when I was 25 and it helped my relatives very much. However, I need the college loan once more time.
COMMENTS AND OTHER TIDBITS
I used to listen to you guys 1982-1986 when I was stationed at Elmendorf. One day I was talking to someone at Eielson on the phone, both of us stopped talking when we realized we were both listening to Kabn radio. (pretty good propagation through the passes) You guys were great smiley
Bear's Story
Great Story. Thank you Roger. Please let Kim Adelia know that her old Fairbanks friend says 'hi'
COMMENTS AND OTHER TIDBITS
And a dream it was. Traveling up the Alcan with my dog and Winchester 30.30 in a little orange Datsun pickup, the year: 1980. I was 23 and burned out on what I'd been doing and was looking to the Great Promise That Was Alaska. Some of the best times of my life were out on a roof pounding nails for a Wasilla contractor, with the radio cranked to KABN radio listening to the songs that were to become my background music for life the next three summers. Whether catching Reds in Nancy Lake Creek, or driving over Hatcher Pass way too early in the year, there was only one station on that old cassette radio, it might just as well have been welded in place. I can't explain the feeling of being young in a Great Land, living free, working hard during the housing boom of the early '80's and just soaking it all in to my soul. And KABN always in the background. Man, where did it all go, the life, the dreams, the expanse, the thrill of living in a place where nature calls the shots and I only too ...
Bear's Story
what can you say when one of the most mentioned names by regular KABN listeners is the studio dog? a true celebrity of Alaskan broadcasting.

EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES REMEMBERS

TELEVISION/RADIO; An Island of Idiosyncrasy on the AM Dial  By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN Published: August 12, 2001
" ...The commercial FM dial counts only a handful of free-form stations, like KPIG in Watsonville, Calif., KGSR in Austin, Tex., and WMPS in Memphis. And in the entire nation, Mr. Rodrigues of Radio and Records said, there may be no other AM station quite like WHVW. The most similar outlets over the last 20 years -- KABN in Willow, Alaska, WGKA in Atlanta and WIVS in Crystal Lake, Ill. -- all either went defunct or changed format after being sold..."
[read entire New York Times article]

WHAT WE'RE TALKIN' 'BOUT THESE DAZE... ...
TopicsByCategoryDate
Re:whynot an internet KABN Radio?gONZObLISSOur Brilliant Think Tank07-03-09 05:29
Re:whynot an internet KABN Radio?stedmanalaskaOur Brilliant Think Tank04-03-09 20:33
Re:whynot an internet KABN Radio?gONZObLISSOur Brilliant Think Tank01-03-09 01:52
whynot an internet KABN Radio?stedmanalaskaOur Brilliant Think Tank28-02-09 22:25
GreetingsgONZObLISSA Conversation As The Music Plays20-02-09 03:38

Latest "My Trip Down The Rabbit Hole" Post

RADIO FREE BIG LAKE -- or what a long strange trip it's been
Monday, 01 December 2008 | W.J. Lynus O'Brien

RADIO FREE BIG LAKE -- or what a long strange trip it's beenThinking back on it, I wonder? Would I change it if I could? Would I take it all back? Even after all these years I'm not yet able to answer that question. But what I do know, what I can tell you, giving it straight from the heart, is this, that night in 1980 during my weekly bath in the old #3 wash tub I began a journey that took me down a path from which there was no coming back. I'd...
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A Tribute to John Hale, "The Commander"

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WHERE THE LEGEND BEGAN
WHAT BECAME OF IT ALL?
THE FIRE THAT TOOK IT AWAY

The Famous A.T. & Chris

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