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90.5 KGSP turns off when school's out

A

AnyHuman

Guest
I was in Kansas City recently, could not find a trace of 90.5 KGSP and I went all over town. The station is 100 watts at 18 meters high up.
I checked with their Facebook page and got a response.
The station is run by Park University. It's a student-run station, so apparently it was off because the semester had just ended. Therefore no student DJs are there to run it from what I hear. I guess they turn their transmitter off to save electricity money when school's out, but is that legal? If not maybe they can throw together an automation system to play music.

Here is their website, which has an audio stream going. Maybe summer school's in session now? LOL or they're running the stream on autopilot without the FM on.
http://kgsp.park.edu/
 
Yes, it is legal. It used to be very common for school stations to have limited operating hours. That began to change in the 2000s for a couple of reasons. First, automation systems became pretty inexpensive, allowing the computer to spin records all summer pretty much unattended.

Second, an Indiana broadcaster, Martin Hensley, apparently wishing to expand his network of Christian radio stations, began filing petitions to deny license renewals to stations which did not operate year-round. This caused many stations, especially those in Midwest but also elsewhere, to figure out some means of programming all year.
 
Outside of an internship in high school, KGSP, then at 90.3, was my first taste of radio. At the time, it was a whopping 10 watts from Copley Hall. You could hear it around campus and most of downtown Parkville, but it was gone by the time you hit the refineries on Hwy 9 and by the time you got out of downtown heading north.

And, yes, it signed off during breaks, and I’m thinking it ran all automated programming during finals. I only worked there about half of one semester as I had recently graduated and moved to KC for a job. The next semester, I went to KCMW in Warrensburg (now KTBG), but that only lasted about a semester as well. My ex didn’t want me spending too much time at the radio station after she moved up to join me.

I took airchecks from KGSP and KCMW to get a commercial radio gig in Columbia, MO a few years later after the ex was gone and I found myself back in school.
 
I've heard KGSP on the air a few times, mostly during the day recently although at night they have left the transmitter on occasionally. It appears they left the transmitter on tonight for example earlier, until a few minutes ago. Before it went off I just heard an advertisement regarding safety when crossing the street with "KGSP 90.3". They might wanna change that frequency on some of their ads, but radio's not as popular nowadays. The fact they only have it on 6 or 7 times each month proves radio's listenership decline.
 
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I don’t think it shows the decline of radio as much as it shows the lack of interest among students. We had a small, but tight knit, group when I was there. Nick McCabe went on to work for Union Broadcasting. Jay Steffen works in IT now. I also went into commercial radio only to leave it for IT. I can’t imagine there are more people interested in the station today. Even then, the school had to beg people to work there. That was how I got a gig even though I never enrolled at Park.

That safety PSA you heard, by the way, is likely one of the exact same PSA's I played. It sounds familiar to me. We used to play them on carts.
 
Not Missouri, but in Bellevue, WA, we had 89.9 KASB, operated by the local HS. They used to go off during summers (because, you know, K-12's out for summer). I think they now run automated over the summer.
Now in Ellensburg I'm 1/2 mile away from the transmitter for 88.1 KCWU. CWU keeps it on through the summer, mostly automated, but I think there may be some live shows as well. Obviously now, there's a variety of shows and DJs on KCWU at the moment with fall quarter. They also air Wildcat sports including football games.
 
This station plays literally everything. Right now the transmitter's on and I just heard George Strait followed by some 80's tune, followed by Nicki Minaj, now some Blues are playing. For those listening online the stream quality is very low, that's why tonight is lucky because the transmitter was left on at high quality audio on 90.5. The FM's usually off I'd say 90% of the time, so that makes KGSP more like a part-time pirate station than anything else hahaha.
https://kgsp.park.edu/Default.aspx

[edit] They just said that *90.3* is the exclusive home for the 07-08 sports season! LMFAO
 
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