Decent smooth jazz station at UAPB

[wpiv926]

While it doesn't get much notice, The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff operates the 50K KUAP-89.7 FM. While the production value is not much, the music selection is quite upscale in it's sound and the processing is first rate. The signal also gets out good for a short tower located on campus, and can be easily heard in LR.

 

[justgohogs]

That's the advantage of being a college station, it doesn't have to make any money.

 

[rgseark2009]

My nearest IBOC pest.

I remember hearing them a few years ago when I lived in Little Rock. Its one of only three radio stations broadcasting FROM Pine Bluff these days (the others are KTRN 104.5, and religious KCAT 1340).

However its not the first radio station that UAPB operated. The late KOTN 1490 was operated by UAPB from 1993-1995 when the former owner Cal Arnold (?) donated the station. But UAPB was already proposing an FM station and there were conditions to how UAPB was to be operated. Buddy Deane (and family) purchased KOTN and Dumas stations KDDA (AM) and KXFE (FM) and those became part of the original "Delta Radio Network" cluster in 1995.

 

[justgohogs]

My understanding is that Buddy bought KOTN, in part, because he couldn't stand hearing what UAPB had done to his station.

 

[rgseark2009]

From what I little I listened to KOTN in that era, they were operating a limited schedule (12 hours a day, signing off at 6pm even during the heat of summer) and playing the same music that was played during the post-Deane era (AC/MOR, etc). Of course the Razorback games disappeared, the advertisers, and so did Rush Limbaugh's program (yes for a time, KOTN prior to UAPB's "mothballing" broadcast Limbaugh live). From things I've seen, UAPB didn't really want the station since they were interested in getting KUAP (FM)on the air instead because UAPB would be free of the programming restrictions that were placed on KOTN as a condition of UAPB taking ownership of the station.

I regret not airchecking (recording) any of KOTN OTA during this time but I had no interest of hearing music on a low power AM station I could hear elsewhere.