To Reed or not to Reed

It was just this week that 97.9 KRRC went dark, possibly for good.  The Reed College radio station has had a long and troubled history and the expectations have often been grim. They were operating at a mere 8.2 watts before this and it had been a long struggle to get that much at all. But let's begin at the beginning. More here.

The first incarnation of the Reed Radio Club began in 1954, by October 1955 KRCB-AM was a reality. This carrier current station operated on 660 AM. Their studio was in the basement of Doyle dormitory and they may or may not have also had a wee little pirate transmitter. Regardless of the legalities, this grew into a 10watt Class-D station, 89.3 KRRC-FM by the summer of 1958. But the patchwork of home-made and refurbished hardware was breaking down from the beginning. frequent bouts of downtime plagued the station for a decade. In 1981 that Class D status reared it's ugly head when 89.1 KMHD bumped them from their frequency.  KRRC and moved to 104.1 where they sat undisturbed until 2002. More here, and here.

A christian radio station from Tillamook, KFIS-FM was changing it's city of license to move-in on Portland and was going to mow down the Tiny Tim of college radio stations in order to do so. Only a couple months later the Portland fire marshal paid them a surprise visit and found them in violation and closed their studios. They did manage to pull that one out and get moved to 97.9 at an even lower power.  In 1992 they tried to make the best of a bad situation and increase their HAAT on the KGON tower. The FCC denied their request.

Then the unthinkable happened. On January 10th 2010, KRRC made it's plea on line with the following post:

"KRRC needs $5k to apply for a new frequency, the assistant treasurers are in favor of giving us the money, but ultimately it's senate's decision. If you care about KRRC, if you've listened to KRRC, if you like KRRC, please, take a second out of your day to send Senate an email. Tell them you want to keep broadcasting and keep KRRC alive....To put it bluntly, this is life or death for KRRC, if we don't get a new frequency, we won't be able to legally broadcast, and the FCC will take our license away..." 

It was an even worse situation that the last time. This time it was Clear Channel. They're moving KNRQ all the way from Eugene, OR into the Portland, OR market. For some reason, despite prior concerns about station migrations away from smaller markets, the FCC has permitted this 100+ mile move. the legally dubious move-in stomps directly on top of KRRC. Grim is an understatement. In November of 2011, KRRC gave up the ghost and moved to an online-only platform.

Reed College tried to sell the doomed license, then an a clever more they donated the class D license for KRRC to a non-profit devoted to community group named Common Frequency. With any luck the new owners will keep the programming local and try to shoehorn the station into a new frequency somewhere on the Portland radio dial.

Hey Kids! Surprise! We took down your tower!

I guess he would rather have then start a lacrosse club... Here I am sticking my nose into current events but this one is just so damn odd. http://www.wqaq.org/

WQAQ, Connecticut college station and one of a handful of remaining Class D licenses was shut down recently. The station went silent this summer on May 1, 2006. (as they often do) with the intention of returning in the fall. But this year they returned and found that
Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey decided to have their transmitting tower torn down over the summer months. SURPRISE!

Their reasoning?
"The decision to remove the tower seems to have been an executive decision by Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey. (picture left) "The University removed the tower, which primarily served as a Cingular cell tower, because it was an unsightly eyesore right in the center of campus..." In my experience Universities just airbrush towers out of promo photos. No real reason to tear them down. This appears to have been personal. www.wqaq.com

The decision appears to have been made without consultation of advisors, faculty, or student affairs staff. If they do not get back on the air by April 30, 2007 they forefit their license. Quinnipiac also owns WQUN-AM which airs canned adult standards and runs carries Red Sox games and some University Sports. There is no student involvement in that station.

It's a shame that some stations get to grow under the capable hands of devoted staff like WVPH/RLC (who is currently raising money for a new tower) and some stations langish with Class D licenses without even the basic necessisty of a protected contour. Why do some grow and some wither? It's a question I've been asked and a question I've asked others. http://thecore.rutgers.edu/

I remember Colin helms fomer EIC of CMJ asking me Why WPUR shut down in 1998. (They were a cable station at Purchase college) I didn't have a good answer for him then. It's the collapse of a large support network that is organic and delicate. Why that support network collapses I dont know. Sometimes it's assasinated. Other times it dies of natural causes. Let see if this one pulls through.

KXLU Vs. KTLW

A translator is just like a weak radio station. It serves a relatively small area but creates interference over a wide area. This poor service-to-interference ratio, which can be mathematically demonstrated, is the key reason that the FCC killed the Class D permits in 1980. It is irresponsible and downright irrational that they continue to issue these kind of translator permits in major metropolitan areas at all.


88.9 KXLU is a 2800 watt college tation in Los angeles Califorina. KTLW is a christian station in the same market. They should co-exist peacably except that KTLW snuck a 10 watt repeater(K205EP) into the protected contour of KXLU. The repeater is a licensed, though there are pretty legitamate accusations that it is running over its permited ERP.

Complaints have been coming in from listeners since the repeater powered on from several areas of Los Angeles that KTLW in Lancaster is bleeding into KXLU. It has even been suggested that they've also illegally installed other repeaters that are cutting out KXLU's signal. Other stations impeded by this translator are KVCR, and KCSB.

KXLU has been filing all the right paperwork but as always, progress is slow. They've been filing for over a year now.

The KTLW translator was first filed for in 1998, going live in 2001. KXLU did not file a brief against it, but lots of non-coms do not have the staff or money to be as vigilant as they should be. Of course this means they can end up spending ten times that ammount later in defense of their contour. alternately their coverage can just recede continually.

KXLU did begin defending themselves thankfully.
CA BLFT-20051024AAF K205EP 93751 LIFE ON THE WAY COMMUNICATIONS, INC. License to cover BPFT-20051024AAF E 88.9 MHZ LA CANADA, CA Interference complaint received from Loyola Marymount University (KXLU) on 10/11/2005

KTLW has 13 other translators, each causing its own brand of trouble, in other cities. Some of these are as far away as Guymon Oklahoma, and Juneau, Alaska. How can they have translators thousands of miles away? Well there's no good reason for that either. list here: http://www.ktlw.net/translator_info.htm They represent the Life on the Way network which is just another peice of the massive multi-national Moody broadcasting network.

Nestled in the burbs of Boston

WBRS 100.1
at only 25 watts very few people outside Waltham, Massachucetts know of their greatness.
My current current favorite show: "Jarring transitions"

They take the primary fault of college radio and make it into a tractable theme. Ignoring the traditional radio goal of having listeners, the DJ transforms their two hour time slot into a personal mixtape. The brave listener must stumble from song to song awkwardly tying to keep the thread. Its's brazen and arrogant. Obviously they are headed for the big time.
http://www.wbrs.org/

WBRS started originally in 1968 as a radio club as a carrier current signal available on campus-only. In the early 1970's WBRS obtained a "Class D FM" 31 watt license from the FCC on 91.7 FM. As was the case with all Class D stations, they were forced to change frequencies to 100.1 by the FCC in 1979.

Anecdotally I can also contributed to the actual definition of the class "class D" license: With the help of local Boston engineer Dana Puopolo, WBRS received a waiver from the FCC in 1995 to run at 25 watts TPO to maintain the 25 watts ERP. The differnce being that of the remaining four antenna bays, the top two are for the primary transmitter. The bottom two are for a backup transmitter. Minor for certain but an interesting historical footnote,. if it is true.

The Most Powerfull Class D Ever!

In 1996, the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (MFACM), a Chicago arts organization dedicated to the preservation and education of Mexican culture, was asked by the Chicago Boys and Girls Club (CBGC not BCBG or CBGB) if it would be interested in purchasing their radio station. Carlos Tortolero, founder and executive director of MFACM, said no. [Why would he be interested in a slice of the 3rd largest and thus 3rd most valulable radio market in America? Yeah, who would want that?]

Shortly thereafter, an unnamed religious organization expressed an interest in purchasing the station, with plans to eliminate all of its educational programming. It was then that MFACM did a 180 and stepped forward. They purchased the 8-watt station for a mere $12,000 and founded WRTE, RADIO ARTE!.

In 2000 Program Director Yolanda Rodriguez admitted in an interview that their $320,000 annual budget, was a strain:
"It's hard to scrape that kind of money together when your broadcasting radius is a mere three miles--five miles on a rainy day. "We can't even get Arbitron ratings. That's a big problem. ... Realistically, if we remain at eight watts, I can see this project slowly dying out."

At the time the unique station was almost another exhibit in the MFAC museum. It served spanish-language programming to the Latino residents of Chicago's Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. It's two pronged mission complicated things. They wanted to serve eclectic and local music and talk programs but also to operate with an all-volunteer staff of students under the age of 21. The value in the mission was clear, but it was an obstruction as well.

They had been trying since June of 1998 to make it work. They needed to increase the wattage. Then unexpectedly FCC chairman William Kennard asked WRTE to apply for a new license under the new low-power radio classification he planned to introduce. The intention was for the station to serve as a poster child for the LP initiative.

But the station declined [WTF!] In October 1998 WRTE had filed to increase their power to 100 watts, and was still waiting for an answer from the FCC. It was a request that if if had been filed in 1980 would have been a sure thing. At that time the Class D licensed stations were almost being dragged forcibly to Class A status. But my 1999 The Class D was a dinosaur on the verge of extinction.

The obvious came to pass, and the original request was turned down in December of 1999. WRTE reapplied at a lower 85 watts. When it became clear that wasn't going to fly either, they lowered the number once more to the current 73 watts. Note: At only 73 watts, WRTE will now be the most powerful station in the class D category .

One can speculate if they had just gone with the flow and filed for a LP license would they have goten the 100 watt wave? In my opinion, probably. So why did they reject the offer? Were they trying to stay out of politics? Regardless, I can kind of hear them from my Chicago hotel this evening. While I have no idea what the DJ is saying, the music is pretty good.

The Assasination of the FM Class D license

I have seen many articles heaping praise and laurels upon the LP license. I find it strange that many of these LP radio proponents don't know the sad and sordid tale of our first love affair with the Low power license, the Class D.

The FCC stopped issuing the FM Class D license in 1978. This license allowed schools to own and operate low power FM stations. Between 1978 and 2002 Low power licenses were only issued in Alaska. And as we all know the FCC has no jurisdiction in Alaska anyway. The need for this broadcast license was abated temporarily with the first (and only) wave of LP licenses.
Nifty article here: http://www.hamradio-online.com/library/fm2.html

In 1978 the class Ds were given the official directive "Grow or die" They had to file papers to turn up the power to 100 watts and qualify as a C license or face the inevitably encroaching protected contours of other stations. Often it was not possible for a station to crank up the juice due to other station on the first or second adjacent.

The Class D license was low power license, allowing a maximum of 10 watts output from the transmitter it could even occupy vacant commercial frequencies. The FCC essentially took the position that high-power stations serve the public interest better than low-power stations. They defend this notion with a simple RF over-crowding argument.

It goes like this: Suppose a Class A station covers a an area 500% greater than a Class D station. If a low-power station was using the same or adjacent frequency then the Class A station could not be able to operate due to spacing. Fewer people are served by the available bandwidth.

The flaw in this notion is that the FM Class D license was designed to fit between the high-power stations where no other class of license could be allowed. In the very unlikely chance that the above occurred, a Class D station, having no protected contour, would be forced to cease operation. The reasoning was wrong.

The reason the reasoning was wrong is that it was just a cover story. The real reason that the FCC yanked that license was that NAB, CPB and NPR pressured the crap out of them. As is typical in Washington, the party with the most money won. The only exception the FCC left standing were drive-in movie theaters.

A handful of original Class D's are still out there. Just recently in Philly WHHS was forced off the air by the move in of WSNJ (now WRNB.)