After several visits, I asked where the transmitter for the station was and they told me how to get to the top of the hotel where it was located. There I met the engineer, John Tutt, and from the questions I asked, he knew I had a genuine interest in how it worked and he told me all about the transmitter, an RCA-250 watt unit.
He showed me how the towers were placed; one down in the lower parking lot and the other to the east on the upper lot. They had come from station KNX and had to be reassembled and rebuilt at the hotel.
One weekend while I was visiting KIEV, I heard cowboy music playing and was told it was a live performance in the studio. I asked if I could watch and was told to go down a long walkway under the sidewalk on the west side of the hotel. I walked past a long abandoned restaurant called “The House of Mar,” which still had tables and chairs in place now covered with dust and cobwebs.
At the end of the walkway was the studio with a big glass window where I saw Jimmy Wakely and his Rough Riders playing and singing before a microphone.
During one of the breaks, one of the musicians asked if I would like to come into the studio, best described as a clothes closet with windows. He asked if I would join them in clapping very loud after each tune. Soon, I was bringing other friends down to hear them play and we all clapped loudly after each number.
One day, I couldn’t get there to hear them play, so I turned on the radio to listen to the show. Well, it was a big surprise to hear what sounded like a very big and loud audience applauding their performance.”
