On July 22, 1936, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the Carlsbad Broadcasting Company to construct a new station on 1210 kHz in Carlsbad. The company's principals were Barney Hubbs, A. J. Crawford, Jack Hawkins, and Harold Miller; The station, which was assigned the
call sign KLAH, In 1941, the station's call sign was changed to KAVE, a nod to the caves at nearby
Carlsbad Caverns; it also moved to 1240 kHz. Carlsbad Broadcasting Company sold KAVE to the unrelated Carlsbad Broadcasting Corporation for $22,000 in 1944, after Hawkins and Hubbs decided to focus on KIUN; most of the new owners' principals—Val Lawrence, Gene Rethmeyer, Norman R. Loose, and Edward Talbott—were associated with
KROD in
El Paso, Texas. On May 16, 1955, Carlsbad Broadcasting Corporation applied to the FCC for a
construction permit to build a television station on channel 6 in Carlsbad. Carlsbad Broadcasting had been planning for three years to build a TV station and had purchased a site on "C" Mountain in 1950. Before construction for the TV station began, negotiations were concluded to sell KAVE radio and the television station permit to Voice of the Caverns, a company of the Battison family consisting of Nancy Hewitt and John Battison, so that Val Lawrence could dedicate himself to managing
KROD-TV in El Paso; the Battisons put
KAVE-TV on the air August 24, 1956. In 1958, the KAVE stations were sold to Ed Talbott, the chief engineer of KROD radio and a minority stockholder in Voice of the Caverns. Talbott's death in 1963 was followed by the $250,000 sale of the stations to John Deme, owner of
WINF in
Manchester, Connecticut. In 1966, Deme sold KAVE radio and television to separate, but related owners. The manager of radio station
KVKM in
Monahans, Texas, Ross Rucker, acquired KAVE radio for $118,000. At the same time, John B. Walton, whose Walton Stations group owned KVKM and its television adjunct
KVKM-TV, spent $325,000 to purchase KAVE-TV. J. Ross Rucker agreed to sell KAVE to Western States Broadcasters—owned by Frank Cooke, Meyer Rosenberg, Dick A. Blenden, Herman H. Ljnneweh, and Jack Rosenberg—in 1970; the new owners took control on January 14, 1971. On November 7, 1974, the FCC announced that the KAVE license had been deleted for failure to file a renewal application; the renewal had been rejected on October 10 for having been filed late. In February 1975, Western States reapplied for 1240 kHz in Carlsbad, proposing a contemporary rock and MOR station; their application competed against one by James B. Hughes and Gerald M. Hanners for a pop,
country and western, and rock station that requested use of the former KAVE facilities. went on the air as
KAMQ on June 25, 1979. ==References==