KPNI, KSMU, KCHU, KNON and KCBI

It's an urban legend told at Class D,  carrier current, and other micro-stations at Colleges and Universities across America. I've heard many versions of it... and even some that had some basis in truth. The story always starts with the college radio station having a big signal, and it ends with them having little or none. IN the middle of the story they always do something a bit naughty, and the school president, or board of regents punishes the station by selling off  or downgrading their license.

I'd heard this story about KPNI at SMU. The story was that they had a license and that after ill-mannered DJs ran amock, the license was sold to KNON. It's totally untrue. The other rumor that the call letters are a dick joke are also untrue. The PNI part of the call letters refer to the school mascot: a pony.

I recovered and posted their defunct website history here. According to that history on their old website, KPNI was founded as the carrier current station KSMU in 1947. (Other sources put the start in 1949) University of Wisconsin described them in a 1949 paper as a "carrier current station." That's the earliest date I can attest to. There is no agreement as to whether the station was operating on 760 or 640 AM initially. That history and another at dfwretroplex.com both concede that the station went dark for years at a time on multiple occasions 1958, 1989, and again recently.

But in the 1960s they even reported to the "What's Happening" column oat Billboard Magazine. They broadcast illegally in the early 1960s, and returned to carrier current status in 1964 with the assistance of Prof. H.Charles Baker. More here. They only began using the KNPI calls after 1987, over 10 years after 91.1 KSMU signed on in Springfield, MO.  There never was a license for KPNI or KSMU, no AM, no FM, no Class D license, no LPFM, not even a CP.

89.3 KNON however, does have a license. Their completely unrelated story actually begins at 90.9 KCBI, the Criswell Bible Institute station. KCBI first went on air in May of 1976 on 89.3 operating at 1000 watts. Our friends at KCHU started work in 1971, but didn't sign on until August 28, 1975. Sadly the free format 90.9 KCHU only operated until September 1977 when it went off air due to insolvency. It was one of the legendary stations connected to Lorenzo Milam and Dennis Gross.

In 1978 KCHU was approached by Criswell Bible College about a license swap. KCHU was not enthused about reducing power form 100k watts to 1,000 watts.  KCHU remained silent through 1980, while they organized a local like-minded group to assume their license as KNON.  KCBI applied to the FCC take over the 90.9 spot.  A legal struggle ensued. The FCC issued an order that if KNON was not on the air by July 31, 1983, the license would be forfeited. They made the deadline. Despite that, in 1986 a judge ruled against KNON and gave their license to KCBI.  KNON lost on appeal but the FCC advised the parties to complete the frequency swap offered 10 years earlier. For their trouble, KNON got a $75k payment which helped stabilize the station's finances. More here. You will notice that KSMU and KPNI do not appear in that story anywhere...

A Confirmed History of KSMU

 After writing the last post, it occurred to me to contact Dr. H. Charles Baker himself. He filled in all the blanks with a couple emails and a short phone call. He informed me that there was a pirate KSMU broadcast prior to 1955 which may have been as strong as 250 watts. It was that station which initiated an FCC action. So in their case, the legend appears to have been real. But those origins are before his tenure with the station. His part of the story was the completely legal and indeed orderly carrier current station. At it's perk he built it out to reach 16 to 18 dormitories. This was, certainly the largest audience for the station until they went online in 2003. 

Below is a slightly edited email from the man himself:

-------------MESSAGE BELOW-------------

Jose,

Not knowing how much you know about this stuff, I'll try to go easy on the technical details.  I was asked by my Department Chairman, Dr. Finley W. Tatum, about 1963 to see if I could help the students who were trying to get a campus radio station going.  SMU had somehow acquired an FM transmitter which the students had operated illegally at some point in time.  The FCC had told them to cease transmitting to avoid fines.  I heard about carrier current radio and proceeded to help with the acquisition of equipment which would allow that kind of operation.

Working under the Student Publishing Company, we bought some low power AM transmitters in the 10-watt range.  (I am not sure what the old FM equipment power was, but 250 watts sounds about right.  I don't even know what frequency it was on, because I wanted nothing to do with illegal operation.) Our source was the "Low-Power Broadcast Equipment Company" or something like that.

The way carrier current works is that you couple the output from the transmitter into the power lines of a building, using capacitors with sufficient voltage rating to keep the 60-Hz. Power from getting into the transmitter.  For any radio that is non-battery operated, the radio signal simple travels up the power cord into the radio.  For radios that run on batteries, it works as long as the radio is near any electrical cord, lamp
cord, or wall outlet.

We were using Part 15 of the FCC Rules and Regulations, which allows anyone to operate without a license if they (1) don't interfere with a licensed radio station, and (2) don't radiate more than a certain level of radiation intensity for more than a certain fraction of a wavelength from the antenna (which was the power lines in the buildings).   I chose a low frequency on the AM dial in order to have a longer wavelength and hence a longer distance for the maximum fraction.

A problem that you have when you use power lines for antennas is that the radio frequency won't cross a power transformer (from one building to another).  Therefore, we had to lease telephone lines from the Umphrey Lee  Student Center studio to each dormitory where we wanted to make our signal available, and we had to buy a transmitter for each dormitory.  I used metal brackets to mount the little transmitters on concrete pillars or walls in the basement of each dorm.

SMU's buildings are connected by utility tunnels throughout the campus.  I was concerned about radio signals sneaking into a nearby building through the tunnel system between dormitories that were situated close together.  So to prevent interference between transmitters via the tunnels, I offset the frequencies slightly.  We started up in 1964, so we advertised AM 64 (640 K-Hz), but it was 64 on many radio dials.  Some dorms had transmitters that were actually 640, some 650, or some 660.  I would use the different frequencies for dorms that were close. Also, I very carefully drove around near all of the dorms that had our signal, and tried to pick up our signal on my car radio.  I could not, so I figured that we wouldn't get any complaints from anybody passing by.

We filed a notice with the FCC that we were using carrier current transmission and requested the call letters KSMU.  Never heard from the FCC, so we did it anyway.

The system worked amazingly well.  Students sold ads to local businesses to support the cost of the leased lines to each building and for subscriptions to record providers.  The format was most "light-modern sounds" such as Ray Coniff.  They also had some rock and roll, but none of the hard stuff.  The Student Publishing Company was good to us in terms of new equipment, tape cartridge players, and other incidentals.  I recall that Mark McKinney was the first student Station Manager, but he graduated about 1965 or 66.  I don't remember who followed him.  The Stations Manager took care of programming, sales, broadcast format, etc.  I just did the technical stuff.

I accepted employment with Humble Oil & Refining Company (later known as Exxon) and left SMU in the summer of 1968.   I later returned to SMU in 1980 and have been teaching there ever since.


H. Charles Baker, Ph.D., P.E.

A Dubious History of KSMU

College radio is rife with stories of the FCC swooping in and shutting down the transmitter. Sometimes the narrative ends with the university selling off their license, or reducing the power to a more-or-less nominal level. There are hundreds of these tales, at least as many as there are stations. Over the years I've found a number to be true, such as the events at WXPN, and KDIC, but usually it's more of an urban legend, or at least a gross exaggeration... like this one told to me by a DJ at KPNI.

KPNI exists today merely as the online radio station of Southern Methodist University (SMU). 10 years ago is was also audible inside their student center over loudspeakers, the Umphrey Lee building, but even that has ceased. Link here or here. But their web presence is scattered to say the least. Twitter pages to up... and down; pages begin tweeting and posting, then cease. But long ago, this was a vibrant and powerful Dallas radio station...supposedly.

Some reports describe KSMU as being on air as early as 1947. This is probably not accurate. In fact, by 1950 there were only seven radio stations in Dallas at all: 1080 KRLD-AM, 1040 KIXL-AM, 660 KSKY-AM, 1190 KLIF-AM, 570 WFAA-AM, 820 WFAA-AM, and 1310 WRR-AM. Only one of those was even full time, KRLD. Some of dubious sources even cite the KSMU frequency as 640 or 760, the power anywhere from 10 watts to 250 watts. No matter what the station may have later been, it was in the 1950s and 1960s, a carrier current station. But the story after 1964 is better documented. In November of that year Billboard wrote up the return of KSMU, and it's formal grand opening, just not to the airwaves exactly...

"KSMU resumed broadcasting after being off air for nine years and operates on a frequency receivable only on the SMU campus. Cables have been laid to eight undergraduate dormitories and their carrier current is transmitted into the electrical system of the buildings. cables will be laid to six graduate dormitories next month. There will be 10 student deejays to broadcast music, news and public service announcements from 5 p.m to midnight Monday through Friday and 7 p.m. to Midnight on Sunday."

They used a feed from KVIL-AM to fill some of their off air time. But later in the article was a name. It is a name that comes up in every article about KSMU from the very beginning:  Dr. H. Charles Baker. More about him here. But notice that first line... "off air for nine years". That would have them going dark in 1955. One more reliable source wrote on their now defunct history webpage:

"...KSMU's signal became unbalanced, creating an annoying hum heard over the campus airwaves. In 1957, the station alleviated the problem by installing an antenna that caused the AM signal to wander off campus. Unfortunately for KSMU, the signal interfered with the signal of KSKY, who immediately complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC quickly revoked KSMU's FM license, making 1957 the last year for KSMU to legally be heard off campus."

If it was heard off campus, it was illegally off campus. Which would have raised the ire of any licensed broadcaster receiving interference. But to reiterate, there never was a license for KSMU, no AM, no FM, no Class D license, no LPFM, not even a CP. Even their illustrious return in 1964, was still as a carrier current station. This is sometimes listed as with dates other than 1964, despite the cut-and-dry 1968 Billboard article.) It is worth noting that they may have been carried on Park Cities Cable's public access channel around 1979 but it's an apocryphal claim that I can't corroborate. More here.

So the station probably "signed on" starting around 1955. I think the pre-1950 claims are deeply dubious. It was dark from 1955 to 1964, then dark again 1980-87 returning as KPNI in 1994. The new callsign was probably to differentiate itself from the legitimate licensed 91.1 KSMU-FM in Springfield, MO. The station converted to broadcast online exclusively in 2003. The FCC never took away their license, nor did the school sell it off. They may have caused interference to KSKY around 1957, and they may even have pirate broadcast a few times... but that may be just a fish tale.