KHAR (590AM) is acommercial radio station inAnchorage, Alaska. It airs asoft oldies andadult standardsradio format, supplied byWestwood One's "America's Best Music" service. It is owned byAlpha Media, with studios on Artic Slope Avenue, two blocks west of theDimond Center Shopping Mall in Anchorage.

KHAR is aClass B station powered at 5,000 wattsnon-directional. Itstransmitter is off C Street at West Klatt Road in the Bayshore neighborhood of South Anchorage.^[2] Programming is also heard on 250-wattFM translatorK244EG at 96.7MHz.^[3]

KHARsigned on the air on January 7, 1961. It was founded by Willis "Bill" Harpel, who previously worked atKFQD and owned stations inWashington state. He founded Sourdough Broadcasters, and later launched 104.1 KHAR-FM (nowKBRJ) and KHAR-TV 13 (nowKYUR). The station'scall sign included the first three letters of Harpel's last name. Harpel died accidentally in January 1968. His family, particularly widow Patricia and son Craig, continued to run Sourdough Broadcasters for several more decades.

During its earlier decades, KHAR, like many AM stations, aired a general format, including music and news. Notable aspects of early programming included broadcasting messages toBush residents, a practice once fairly common among broadcasters in Alaska. The station was also noted for carrying the commentaries of Ruben Gaines, a onetime poet laureate of Alaska known for creating the character "Chilkoot Charlie".

KHAR programmed an adult standards format from the 1970s until 2013. The station's branding,Heart Radio 59, was also featured for decades. KHAR was one of only a few commercial stations in Alaska whose format more or less remained intact during the era of broadcasting company consolidation which began in the 1990s. KHAR was one of a number of Anchorage stations acquired byMorris Communications. It shares studios with itssister stations in the Morris Alaska building near theDimond Center.

On May 1, 2013, KHAR changed its format from adult standards toall-sports. It carried programming fromCBS Sports Radio.^[4] Morris Communications sold KHAR and 32 other stations toAlpha Media LLC effective September 1, 2015, at a purchase price of $38.25 million.

On April 1, 2024, the station flipped back to soft oldies and adult standards as "Gold Rush Radio". The format is described as carrying four decades of the greatest hits of all time, including a "blend of the best pop, soft AC and easy listening".^[5] The format, fromWestwood One's "America's Best Music" service, does not have DJs.

KHAR is also broadcast on the following FM translator:

• List of radio stations in Alaska

• FCC History Cards for KHAR
• Official website
• Facility details for Facility ID 60914 (KHAR) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• KHAR inNielsen Audio's AM station database
• Facility details for Facility ID 139580 (K244EG) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• K244EG at FCCdata.org

61°07′12″N149°53′43″W / 61.12000°N 149.89528°W /61.12000; -149.89528

• 1961 establishments in Alaska
• Radio stations established in 1961
• Radio stations in Anchorage, Alaska
• Adult standards radio stations in the United States
• Alpha Media radio stations

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