KVET: An Austin AM station with sports programming and a postwar origin

KVET is an Austin AM radio station broadcasting at 1300 kHz. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station carries a sports format that combines locally produced sports shows with programming supplied by Fox Sports Radio.

Its signal operates differently during the day and at night. KVET broadcasts at 5,000 watts during daylight hours, directing its signal northwest across the Texas Hill Country. After dark, it reduces power to 1,000 watts and directs the signal south toward central Austin. The station uses a directional antenna for this coverage pattern.

KVET’s transmitter is located on Metric Boulevard, a few miles north of downtown Austin. Its studios and offices are housed with those of four other iHeartMedia sister stations at the Penn Field complex in the South Congress district, commonly known as SoCo. The facility is within walking distance of St. Edward’s University, placing the station’s operating base in a part of south-central Austin known for its concentration of businesses and institutions.

The station’s origins date to the period immediately following World War II. Ten Texas veterans formed the Austin Broadcasting Company and combined their resources to establish a new Austin radio outlet. The group received a construction permit on December 13, 1945, and selected a call sign incorporating “vet,” reflecting the founders’ background. KVET began broadcasting on October 1, 1946, becoming Austin’s third radio station at the time it launched.

The original ownership group included John Connally, who later became governor of Texas, and Jake Pickle, who later served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Their involvement places KVET’s early history within the broader civic and political life of postwar Texas, while the station’s current sports format reflects its role in Austin’s contemporary broadcast landscape.

For listeners, KVET is defined by both its programming and its technical footprint: a locally based sports station with a signal engineered to reach different areas of the region depending on the time of day. Its long-running Austin presence, North Austin transmitter site and SoCo studio location make it part of the city’s enduring radio infrastructure.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://radio-locator.com/info/KVET-AM - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77109903/ - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77110097/ - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77110309/ - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77110659/ - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77111279/ Image rights Photograph description: The Howson Community Center in Austin, Texas, United States. The center was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 1985. Creator: Larry D. Moore. License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHowson_community_center.jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.