Perth: 6KY, 6JKY, 6MIX

Our first station to feature on Radio Recall is Perth radio station 6KY.

The station began broadcasting in 1941 – the fourth commercial station in the city and would be the last one to open in Perth for the next 39 years.

The station’s original broadcast frequency was 1210 kHz – later changed to 1206 kHz in 1978.

6KY in 1987, above, when it was ‘Nice and Easy’.

In 1991, 6KY was the second of two AM radio stations in Perth to convert to the FM band. The official call-sign was changed to 6JKY, to observe the normal three-letter call-sign protocol for FM stations, but identified on-air as 94.5 KY FM.

The branding was later amended to remove the “KY” letters – which had a somewhat salacious connotation – to become just 94.5FM.

The station is now owned by the Austereo network and has the on-air branding Mix 94.5. The official call-sign is now 6MIX.

Mix 94.5 has been Perth’s top rating radio station since December 1999 – making it almost a decade as Perth’s Number One radio station.

Website: Mix 94.5

Hello Listeners….

After almost a decade writing about Australian television history (here, and more recently here), I’ve decided to branch out a little and delve a bit into radio as well.  To be completely honest, my knowledge of radio history and my archive is nowhere near as great as some, but I hope to be able to shine a little bit of light on some of the radio that was in Australia – particularly through the ‘80s and ‘90s as that is where a majority of my collection of memorabilia has come from.

I also got inspired to add some radio history to the net after seeing two excellent radio blogs over the last week – Lots Of Radio Stuff and Radio Sticker Of The Day – and realising that I had some of my own collection to share.  So thank you guys and I hope you don’t mind being used for a bit of inspiration!!

Cheers,
Andrew