KHJL signed on in 1963 with the call letters KNJO, broadcasting from a studio in the Park Oaks shopping center in Thousand Oaks, California. KNJO stood for "Conejo", the valley in which the station was located. The station's claim to fame at the time was that it was the first FM radio station on the West Coast to broadcast in stereo. KNJO was a community radio station and featured local news, sports, and remote broadcasts from a variety of local events. For a time, the studio technician was 10 year old Steve Webb, who is now the founder of Radio Brandy. The station was originally owned by Dodger baseball star Sandy Koufax and later purchased by Alan Fischler, Ed Feldman and Art Hogan, Ira Barmack (operator of KMDY Thousand Oaks [a comedy station], political strategist/attorney Darry Srago, and finally the Amaturo Group. Studios moved to the Westlake Village North Ranch Mall, and today are located on Long Court in Thousand Oaks. Joe Amaturo and the Amaturo family purchased the station in the 90's, they also purchased stations on the same frequency on Catalina Island and in Temecula. Eventually, they began a trimulcast, and changed the call letters of this station to KMLT when the station became Lite 92.7. The goal of the Amaturos has been to cover the entire Los Angeles/Orange County basin with three stations on one frequency, 92.7 FM, but coverage is still lacking in many areas.
Greg Lefevre in the new KNJO production room, during the air studio rebuild a Sparta mini studio was placed in this room. Prior to being used as studio, this was KNJO's only office (small office at that!).
Picture was taken in the late 1970's
Alan Fischler understood the meaning of community service. KNJO did remotes at the Volkswagen dealer on Saturdays, judged talent contests at the pizza parlor, aired community summits and broadcast local athletics as well.
