KLAA (AM)

KLAA (830 kHz "Angels Radio") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to the city of Orange, California, and broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles Area. The station is owned by LAA 1, LLC, composed of the owners and executives of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team, and is held separately from the baseball club. KLAA's studios and offices are located on the grounds of Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.

KLAA's transmitter operates from a three-tower facility in Chino, off McCarty Road. It broadcasts as a full-power 50,000-watt station during the daytime from a single tower, using a non-directional signal. Because 830 AM is a United States clear-channel frequency, on which WCCO in Minneapolis is the dominant class A station, KLAA must reduce power to 20,000 watts from sunset to sunrise. At night it feeds power to all three towers in a directional pattern, projecting most of the signal westward to protect WCCO.

KLAA mostly carries ESPN Radio network programing, as an alternate for primary station KSPN, except for coverage of Angels and Las Vegas Raiders games and a local afternoon sports show, The Sports Lodge with Roger Lodge.

AM 830 first signed on the air on January 9, 1986, as KSRT, a Spanish-language news and information station. The station was directional day and night, with a daytime power of 2,500 watts and 1,000 watts night. Former NFL placekicker Danny Villanueva was co-owner and general manager. The transmitter site was at Oak Flat in the Santa Ana Mountains near Santiago Peak. While mountain tops are good for FM transmission, AM stations need low, flat land for the best signal propagation. The poor ground conductivity yielded a less-than-optimal signal for KSRT. (Today, KSRT is a Regional Mexican music station in Cloverdale, California.)

In 1991, the station changed its callsign to KPLS, and began airing a Spanish language talk radio format as "La Voz" in January 1992. On February 11, 1993, after a brief period of silence, the station switched to a children's radio format, becoming "Radio AAHS". It was part of the first nationwide network of radio programs for children. The downfall of Radio AAHS came when The Walt Disney Company established a competitor, Radio Disney. After the sign-off of Radio AAHS in January 1998, the parent company, Children's Broadcasting Corporation, needed programming for the network of stations until they could find buyers. KPLS and the other nine CBC-owned and operated Radio AAHS stations flipped to "Beat Radio", which broadcast electronic dance music 12 hours each night. (As of 2020, the KPLS call letters are used by a Christian radio-formatted station in Littleton, Colorado.)

KPLS was sold in late October 1998 to Catholic Family Radio and adopted a Catholic talk format. During this period, the station was owned by John Lynch, father of the veteran National Football League cornerback of the same name. Lynch was former CEO of Noble Broadcasting of San Diego.

In 2000 the station was granted a power increase by the FCC, allowing it to operate with 50,000 watts during the day and 20,000 watts at night, giving it a signal comparable to the major AM stations in Los Angeles. It also moved to its current tower site in Chino.

Despite the power increase, KPLS' programming foundered. It transitioned to a conservative talk radio format as "HotTalk 830 – LA's Conservative Voice" which featured nationally syndicated shows from Laura Ingraham and Michael Savage. KPLS had close ties to the Orange County business community and was the flagship station of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team.