KTLK

KTLK (1130 kHz) – branded News/Talk AM 1130 and FM 103.5 – is a commercial radio station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota. It broadcasts a conservative talk radio format to the Twin Cities radio market and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios are on Utica Avenue South in St. Louis Park.

By day, KTLK is powered at the maximum for AM stations, 50,000 watts, and uses a directional antenna at all times. At night, to avoid interference with other stations on 1130 AM, it reduces power to 25,000 watts and uses a nine-tower array. The transmitter is on Flag Trail at Prairie Hills Lane in Prior Lake. Programming is also heard on 175-watt FM translator K278BP at 103.5 MHz in Cottage Grove. It is also simulcast over an HD Radio subchannel of 100.3 KFXN-FM.

KTLK is the second-oldest continuously operating station in Minnesota. It signed on the air on December 23, 1923; 101 years ago (December 23, 1923). Dr. George W. Young was the founder of the station, first using the sequentially assigned call sign KFMT. (KUOM, Minnesota's oldest station, began operation in 1922.)

Dr. Young first operated the station from his house in Minneapolis at 2219 Bryant Ave. North, cycling through other call signs WHAT, WGWY ("W-George W. Young"), and finally WDGY ("W-Dr. George Young") in the next two years until being chastised by the government for changing too frequently. The station kept the WDGY call letters until 1991. WDGY operated on eight frequencies over its early years. In the 1930s, it was heard on 1180 AM, transmitting with 5,000 watts by day and 1,000 watts at night. The station shared time with at least four local stations, including WRHM and WCAL during its early years.

After moving the station out of his home, Young located the studios at several locations: his storefront at 909 West Broadway in Minneapolis, the West Hotel on Hennepin at 5th Street and 609 South Second Avenue. Minnesota native George Putnam began his broadcasting career at WDGY in 1934. Putnam later gained fame as a Los Angeles television news anchor and talk show host. In 1938, WDGY relocated its studios to the Nicollet Hotel at Washington Avenue and Nicollet Avenue after WCCO had vacated the facility for new studios at Second Avenue South and Seventh Street.

WDGY made its final frequency move, to 1130 AM, in 1941 as required by the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA), under which most American, Canadian and Mexican AM radio stations changed frequencies. Transmitter sites are known to have been at Young's house, at the Broadway address, and from 1927 to 1949 at Superior Boulevard (aka Wayzata Boulevard, Highway 12) and Falvey Cross Road in St. Louis Park on the grounds of a fox farm. Dr. Young died on April 27, 1945.

Later studio locations included Bloomington (two locations), 611 Frontenac Place in St. Paul and, in 2004 at the Clear Channel Communications consolidated offices in St. Louis Park at 1600 Utica Avenue. The transmitter site moved in 1949 to Bloomington, at a site that would within a decade overlook I-35W, using a nine-tower array covering several acres.

In 1933, Dr. Young was granted a license for W9XAT, an experimental mechanical television station that is credited with the first telecast in Minnesota. It is believed that the first transmission of the 45-line system occurred on August 4 of that year, featuring a handshake between WDGY station personality Clellan Card and Minneapolis mayor William Kunze. Later on, 120- or 125-line tests were done on the VHF band. The station pushed the technological limits of mechanical scanning and provided a lot of interesting exercises for WDGY engineers, but Dr. Young never got into regular broadcasts, as he did not want attention from radio hobbyists. The license for W9XAT expired in 1938, partly because mechanical television development was discouraged by that point. After 64 years of dormancy, an amateur radio group in the area acquired the W9XAT call sign in 2002 with the intention of using it for mechanical and narrow-bandwidth TV experiments.