After months of planning, Saint Louis University’s radio station KSLU’s plans for low-power FM have been unconditionally terminated.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed legislation on Dec. 21, 2000 that cut back the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Low Power FM Proposal. The proposal would have allowed radio stations to broadcast at low power, or one-tenth the power of a normal commercial radio station.
The legislation asserts that up to three channels must remain unused between all stations. For example, if a station’s call number is 103.3, then the three adjacent channels to the left and right-102.9, 103.1, 103.5 and 103.7-would be unavailable for use by any other radio stations.
KSLU adviser Chris Grabau said that prior to Dec. 15, 2000, a parameter of two adjacent channels was set. At that time, there were several available frequencies in the St. Louis area for KSLU to apply for low-power FM. However, the parameter changed to three adjacent channels, leaving no available channels for low-power FM applicants.
“It closes up all possible gaps,” said events director Chris Schaeffer. “All the open sites are now eaten up by this law.”
Low-power FM is mainly geared toward nonprofit, community-oriented radio stations, said KSLU general manager Brian Suda. “In the Midtown area, especially, it would have been a great thing, but that got taken away from us,” Suda said. “The problem with the St. Louis area is that there was no more availability of channels once Congress passed this legislation.”
KSLU stopped broadcasting in the mid-80s when the station lost its license. The idea of low-power FM emerged under former KSLU GM Jason Sengheiser, a little more than a year ago. Suda and this year’s staff continued the effort, spending months making preparations, filling out paperwork and planning.
“They’ve put in a lot of effort into dealing with how to run KSLU as an LP-FM station,” Grabau said.
Although whether or not other forms of LP-FM would be considered in the future, Suda said that the staff would now focus its efforts toward other projects, including Web radio, or streamlining KSLU broadcasts via the Internet.
