KCBQ (1170 AM "The Answer") is a commercial radio station in San Diego, California. It is owned by Salem Media Group and airs a conservative talk radio format. Studios and offices are on Towne Center Drive in San Diego's University City area. The transmitter is off Moreno Avenue in Lakeside, California. By day, KCBQ operates at 50,000 watts, the maximum power for American AM stations. Because KCBQ is not a clear-channel station, it must reduce its power at night to 2900 watts to avoid interfering with Class A stations KTSB in Tulsa, Oklahoma and WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, both clear-channel stations. KCBQ uses a directional antenna at all times. KCBQ used a Top 40 format in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, later airing country music and oldies formats in the 1980s and 1990s, before switching to talk. History 1170 first signed on the air in 1946. Its original call sign was KSDJ (for its owner The San Diego News Journal). The station began broadcasting from its first studio at 5th and Ash (later to become the studios of KFMB AM-FM-TV). In 1949, KSDJ was sold to Charles Elliot Salek and became San Diego's second CBS network affiliate. (KGB had been San Diego's first CBS affiliate during the 1930s). To coincide with the new network affiliation, the KSDJ call letters were changed to KCBQ, meaning "Columbia Broadcasting Quality". The call letters "KCBS" were sought, but the CBS network wanted them for the network-owned station in San Francisco. An "agreement" was reached and Salek settled for KCBQ. In 1951, KCBQ moved its studios to the Imig Manor Hotel (now the Lafayette) on El Cajon Blvd. KCBQ's transmitter site was next to the Campus Drive-In at El Cajon Boulevard and College Ave. The drive-in was demolished in the late 1970s and is now the Campus Shopping Center. KCBQ's power until 1958 was 5,000 watts non-directional day and 1,000 watts non-directional night. The station used an RCA BTA-5F 5,000 watt transmitter at the College site. KFSD (now KOGO) used the same model transmitter. Bartell Family Radio bought KCBQ in 1955 and dropped the CBS affiliation as network radio was losing its luster in the face of competition from television. In 1956 the station spent a few months in an old Victorian house during a gap between the end of their lease at the Imig Manor and the completion of the new glass studios