UM radio station threatened

The Baltimore Sun ^ | February 24, 2006 | Nick Madigan

[Denver Ditdat]

A ripple of indignation spread across the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park yesterday over news that its student-run radio station, which has been broadcasting since 1937, might be unceremoniously forced off the air by a more powerful station in Baltimore.

[Denver Ditdat]

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[Draco]

Ironic that a "public" radio station (NPR I presume)is doing this. But the college station's signal only goes out a few miles. Why not just webcast?

[darkwing104]

This is too good....College radio station knocked off by NPR!

[El Conservador]

Same thing happens here in STL...

The NPR local affiliate, KWMU (run by the UM-St. Louis) has gone out of its way to keep KWUR (run by Wash U) a low-power station, barely audible outside WU's campus,

[PAR35]

The student station at the University of Maryland has only a 10 watt transmitter? The student station at the University of Georgia started at 3200 watts, and has built up to about 26000 watts last time I checked.

I did find this interesting item in Wikipedia:

"In the U.S., the FCC partially re-legalized LPFM licenses, after the NAB, CPB, and NPR convinced them to stop issuing the FM class D license in 1978." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-power_broadcasting

So it appears that the attack on this Class D station is part of a wider NPR campaign.

[jennyp]

But the college station's signal only goes out a few miles. Why not just webcast?

That's been a very successful strategy for KEXP in Seattle.

[Denver Ditdat]

That may indeed be the way to go for this station. Since their 10W signal covers a very small footprint, I'd guess that most of the listeners are students in dorm rooms. Web or podcast would serve them fine

The biggest loss would be on the transmitting side of the operation. Students who wanted practical RF engineering experience wouldn't find it here. That would have been my primary interest when I was of college age. The heck with that DJ stuff, let me at the guts of the transmitter!

[TechJunkYard]

Agreed. Anyone can webcast, but the real thrill is hearing your signal on a real broadcast receiver.

When I was at Drexel University in the mid 70s, our WKDU station time-shared 91.7 with WPWT at Philadelphia Wireless Technical College. But these folks don't want to give up 88.1 and I don't imagine any other college in that region would want to give up any "rights" to "their" frequency either.

[Vision]

I broadcasted on that station once

[MarkL]

This is too good....College radio station knocked off by NPR!

This is exactly what happened at the community college I went to. We had a 17 watt tranmitter, and a highly directional antenna. We had an elyptical coverage of about 20 miles maximum, and there was a powerful NPR station in NJ that was constantly filing complaints with the FCC to get our license revoked.

Remember, NPR IS corporate, and they love using government power to eliminate competition, just like any other leftist organization.

Mark