As great as KJET was, the station did have a few problems. Being an AM station, the music lacked the sound quality of FM radio. The station was owned by the same people that owned Seattle FM station KZOK, but because KJET never generated much revenue for them, it received a small operating budget. In fact, some accounts made it sound like KJET was the cast-off stepchild locked in the attic that noone ever talked about. One of the cost-cutting measures employed was to "automate" the station much of the time. This was accomplished by having the DJ's tape their between-song segments ahead of time. I'm not sure exactly how the automation worked, but the DJ segments must have been on one tape reel (or cart), while the songs were on another. Sometimes everything worked fine, and you were never aware that things weren't truly "live". But often things broke down, the machines going out of sync. This resulted in the DJ's announcing one song, but having another song play instead. To the listener, it seemed like the DJ's were incompetent, but it was really due to the imperfect automation of the station.

Even with these faults, the station played some great music and was responsible for turning me on to a lot of new artists, many of which I still listen to (see list at right). Of course, this was just a small cross-section of what KJET played but these are artists I connected with for one reason or another and ended up exploring their other releases.

Have your own memories? Please leave a message on the KJET Guestbook!
 
related links
 
KJET Playlist
Mike's site used to have a KJET playlist posted in HTML format. Prior to his site going offline, I transferred the playlist and parsed it into two Word files...one organized alphabetically, the other by release date. This .ZIP archive contains both of those Word documents.
 
KJET 1600 (Live365 Internet Broadcast) (offline)
Part tribute, part audio time travel experiment. I have spent a few days creating KJET 1600 at Live365. It currently contains 6+ hours of music along with station IDs and even Debbie Pane announcing a few songs. My playlist in heavily weighted towards the final years of KJET (1987/88).
 
KJET 1600 black box (first 3 years) (Live365 Broadcast) (offline)
What? Another KJET tribute station? Why yes indeed, sir! While mine concentrates on the later post-newwave/alternative side of KJET, Bleek Swinney's station is dedicated to the early years of KJET where you can hear some familiar new-wave tunes as well as several post-punk tunes you may have missed the first time around. Bleek has recently updated his station with plenty of new-found station IDs and great obscure tunes so be sure to give it a listen.
 
KJET Jet Pilot Training Manual (offline)
A tribute site set up by former KJET DJ Mike Fuller. Still partially under construction, but contains lots of great info including extensive KJET music library playlist, commercials and promos (streaming RealAudio), staff photos, where are they now, etc. A must-visit for former listeners.
[Update: This site appears to be offline currently]
 
radioACF (Live365 Internet Broadcast) (offline)
My first Live365 station. Currently contains 7+ hours of music that I think would appeal to former fans of KJET. Where my KJET station stops at 1988 and is confined to songs I remember hearing, RadioACF's playlist does not have these restrictions. Also, I've made sure there is very little duplication in terms of actual songs being played between RadioACF and KJET 1600.
 
XB102 Tribute Page (offline)
This station from the Phillipines had a very similar format to KJET, and this extensive tribute site contains lots of trivia and sound clips and RealAudio broadcasts true to the original vision of XB102 (and KJET).
 
SeattleRadio Discussion Board
Talk about your favorite Seattle radio stations, past or present.
 
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