KNCN (101.3 FM, "C101") is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

licensed to

Sinton, Texas Sinton is a city in and the county seat of San Patricio County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,665 at the 2010 census. It was founded in 1886 and was named in honor of David Sinton, a influential business owner and rancher. Geograph ...

playing to the Corpus Christi metro area. It is under ownership of

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

. The station's studios and offices are located on Old Brownsville Road in Corpus Christi (near the

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

), and its transmitter tower is located west of

Portland, Texas Portland is a city in Nueces and San Patricio Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. Its population was 20,383 as of the 2020 United States census. Portland is a suburb of Corpus Christi, located on the north shore of Nueces and Corpus Christi Ba ...

and north of

Nueces Bay Nueces Bay is a northwestern extension of Corpus Christi Bay in the San Patricio and Nueces Counties of Texas. The bay is fed by the Nueces River, forming a natural estuary, which renders it ecologically and economically vital to the surrounding ...

in San Patricio County.

History

It signed on July 1,

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

from a combined studio and tower site north of the bay north of Corpus Christi and east of Sinton, Texas. Facilities were the same as now, which is a 100,000-

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

signal from a 410-foot

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

. The studio site had on air studios, a bathroom, and the transmitter room. The first main transmitter was a Collins 831-G1. Most recently, the station switched to the

active rock Active rock is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations across the United States and Canada. Active rock stations play a balance of new hard rock songs with valued classic rock favorites, normally with an emphasis on the harder edge o ...

panel per

Mediabase Mediabase is a music industry service that monitors radio station airplay in 180 US and Canadian markets. Mediabase publishes music charts and data based on the most played songs on terrestrial and satellite radio, and provides in-depth analytic ...

. From 1972 to 1976 the 101.3 frequency had been used by KMIO. KNCN was known as C-101 and went on the air in 1976 with a rock format. In later years, sales offices were established in the business center of CCT. They were once in the "600 Building" downtown, and later had their own building on Leopard street. Early on the station received permission from the FCC to identify as a Sinton-Taft station. A bit later they changed that to a Sinton-Corpus Christi identifier. The station was founded by local owners. It was sold to Tippie Communications (whose shareholders had been involved with KHFI-AM-FM-TV in Austin, with Rollins/Terminix, and by the eighties with KVLY-FM in Edinburg, Texas and an FM in the Colorado Springs, Colorado area. The station has been anchored by different DJs throughout the years and has been programmed by some known radio names. Morning Shows included Greg and LJ, Ray Lytle and Jon Lamb, Tim and Rex “Two Guys in the Morning”. Hannah Storm of ESPN had a brief stint as a C-101 DJ in the early 1980s. The station was purchased by a company that was rolled up into Clear Channel Communications (now

External links

NCN Active rock radio stations in the United States IHeartMedia radio stations {{Texas-radio-station-stub