Eastern Twin Cities AM Continues to Look for New Transmitter Site

Endurance Broadcasting’s KLBB/1220 (Stillwater) is in talks with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office about possibly using one of its properties as its new transmitter site.

The news comes in an FCC application to extend special temporary authority for KLBB to operate with a 20-Watt facility from its studio in downtown Stillwater. The station has been operating at the low power level since 2019, a year after selling its former facility on Brick Street to a senior housing provider.

The station’s filing says locating a new transmitter site has been challenging and that the new site must have a cost sustainable by a small-market station. KLBB is licensed within the Minneapolis-St. Paul radio market but only provides a strong signal to the northeastern corner of the market, with coverage further limited to the immediate Stillwater area at night.

A letter from the sheriff’s office’s radio system manager submitted as part of KLBB’s filing says the potential sites are a sheriff’s office facility in Stillwater and the former KJJO-FM/104.1 tower site near Somerset, WI, which is just across the St. Croix River and has been owned by the county since 2008. The letter says a new AM tower could potentially be built on the 40-acre Somerset property but that negotiations are still underway.

KLBB has a construction permit for new 150-Watt FM translator K298DD/107.5, which was granted during the AM revitalization filing window. The translator faces a November 27 deadline to sign on and also needs a new tower site, since the permit specified KLBB’s now-demolished tower.

The FM translator’s coverage will be limited to the far northeastern metro since two other stations, K298CO (Minneapolis) and KBGY (Faribault), are already on 107.5 in other parts of the metro. Still, the addition of an FM frequency would make it far easier for KLBB to compete for Stillwater-area listeners.

KLBB had operated with 5kW day and 254 Watts night, non-directional, from its former transmitter site, which had been in use since 1949. An application to move to a new permanent site has not yet been submitted to the FCC.