105.7 THE BEAR -- Real Rock Radio on 1660 Khz

I have always loved hard rock and heavy rock music.

I have always loved hearing California stations on the MW-AM band (their FM stations, of course, don't reach Seattle -- except online). It may be due to the fact that hearing the California stations fade and flutter over the distances during the cold Winters here reminds me of sunshine and women in bikinis, or perhaps it reminds me of my various trips down the I-5 corridor to California where I was always impressed by the weather and people there.

Anyway -- imagine my surprise when I tuned my Sangean to 1660 Khz one night a month ago and -- instead of the usual Spanish ranchero music -- I heard heavy rock instead: Shinedown's "Cut The Cord", the Deftones, Halestorm's "I Miss The Misery", Pink Floyd, Offspring, Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff", Pantera, Papa Roach, Days Of The New, Ozzy Osbourne's "Flying High Again", Pop Evil's "Footsteps", and even Judas Priest -- a lot of heavy rock tracks a lot of rock stations seemed to stop playing a few years ago, when a lot of them went classic-rock heavy.

My PR-D5 pulls in KBRE 105.7 The Bear on 1660 AM with listenable levels most nights. Some nights, when atmospheric conditions are great to California, it comes in quite loud.

I was hearing rock music on 1660 because the Spanish ranchero station from Utah was no longer on the air, and the Spanish religious station from Merced, California had gone rock.

Apparently KBRE in Merced bought the Merced Spanish station on 1660, to supplement their FM transmitter on 105.7. They apparently cover that area of Central California (Merced, Atwater, and Los Banos) with two FM transmitters and the 1660 AM station.

KBRE play a great mix of new rock along with a lot of heavy rock from the 00's and heavier stuff from the 90's, and just a few snippets of classic rock (Ozzy, etc.) from earlier rock eras.

They are available online, at www.radiomerced.com/images/bearstream

They don't geo-fence, at least as of this writing, which is well appreciated.

Or just bring up 1057 The Bear on your favorite search engine.

Or, better yet: here is their website, with a "Listen Live" button.:

Merced's Rock Station – 1660AM | The Bear 105.7 FM (1057thebear.com)

If you like Rock Music, they are well worth a listen. Give them a 'like' on Facebook, perhaps they won't start geo-fencing soon, like a lot of other radio stations have started doing.

KISW 99.9 FM

Locally, KISW 99.9 (check them out on www.kisw.com) has been the local rock mainstay. Their playlist varies from year to year, but usually they play a good rock mix. They often push the envelope, for example in 2006 they added Army Of Anyone's great track "It Doesn't Seem To Matter" when other rockers around the country didn't play it.

There used to be a local station here (based out of Tacoma) on 104.9, The Funky Monkey, that played nothing but Active Rock -- heavy rock, rap rock and nu-metal. But they went under around 2010.

I often plug my Kindle tablet into my PR-D5 mini boombox and listen to online radio. Usually they are stations from overseas, like the NRK's P3 (Norway has some excellent pop bands) and Sveriges Radio's Sami channel (excellent Sami folk, rock and pop music on that channel) - but I also listen frequently to 105.7 The Bear when the MW band conditions are mediocre towards California.

Most nights, KBRE's signal on 1660 AM comes in well, at listenable levels, but like most AM signals from long distances (Merced is 800 miles / roughly 1000 km away) it varies. Many nights it's fair to poor listening. Other nights it can come in well, even on my Radio Shack Pocket Radio. On nights when it's grainy conditions on the MW band, I just plug the tablet into the AUX on my PR-D5 and listen to The Bear that way.

Check out 105.7 The Bear, rock fans. You'll like it.

And if you are located within earshot of the Western United States, tune your Sangean or Sony or GE to 1660 khz and see if you hear the Bear's rock music phasing in over the airways!

UPDATE:
KBRE 105.7 The Bear started geo-fencing their stream about a month after I wrote this post. But I've just discovered that they are on TuneIn, the streaming radio site. And as of this writing (Feb. 2017) their TuneIn stream works well, even for those who are out of the Merced area.

So if you're not in California, or you are overseas, and want to check out The Bear, get the TuneIn app and you should be able to hear them that way.
Rock on, everybody.
CC 2-5-2017

Update, 7-5-2018:
KBRE's web stream is once again audible here in the NW. They apparently turned off the geo-fencing. Just go their website and their stream can be found under 'Music'. Or use TuneIn.
CC 7-5-2018

Update: 1-9-2023:

Stupid me -- I never added a link to KBRE's website! What was I thinking? I wasn't.

Here it is, complete with a "Listen Live" button, that works even here in the NW US, 900 miles away from Merced. I've also inserted this link into the article, which I wrote a few years ago.:

Merced's Rock Station – 1660AM | The Bear 105.7 FM (1057thebear.com)