The University of Hawaii at Hilo has been granted a Federal Communications Commission construction permit to build a radio station.
At 101.1 on the FM dial, the call letters will be KUHH-LP, with the LP designation meaning it is to be a low-power FM station.
The call letters were granted by the FCC on Feb. 2 but are subject to change, according to Jerry Chang, director of university relations at UH-Hilo.
Unlike KTUH-FM (90.3 in Honolulu, 89.3 in Windward Oahu, 91.1 on the North Shore) on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus, which went on the air nearly 45 years ago and started streaming online more recently, Hilo’s college station is already online and hopes to be on the air within 18 months.
"We are optimistic that we can use a soon-to-be vacant tower on the Campus Center, thus saving a great deal, and funds from the mandatory Board of Media Broadcasting student fees which will cover a portion of the equipment needs," Chang said.
Should additional funding be necessary, "students are also planning to fund-raise," he said.
Once it goes on the air, the station’s signal is expected to reach three to five miles from campus "depending on topography and atmospheric conditions," Chang said.
Back in the stone age — circa the 1970s — the shows at KTUH were mostly referred to by the genre of music played by the student deejay.
Now shows have crazy names such as "The ABCs of Cryptozoology" from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, a program followed by one titled "Shark Train."
Friday’s noon to 3 p.m. "Swinging Bananas" show leads into "The Dub Crawl" from 3 to 6 p.m.
Show titles at the online University Radio Hilo, or URH, are considerably tamer for the most part. They include "The Billy Saturday Reggae Show," "It’s All Cherry With Mike Jerry" and "Let’s Talk About Sex," to name a few.
The vision and mission of the UH-Hilo radio station, once it gets on the air, is to "serve as a vehicle for students to learn all aspects of radio broadcasting," Chang said.
That would include not just hosting a show, but management, program development including talk and news shows, fiscal management including budgeting of student fees, obtaining support from underwriters and development of technical skills, he said.
"URH will provide hands-on learning experience that will serve students in their broadcast careers," Chang said.
Students presently do not receive credit for their unpaid work at the online station, nor does UH-Hilo offer curriculum in broadcasting. However, Chang said, "a fully operational FM station will hopefully encourage the eventual development of credit courses, just as our student newspaper helped to add classes and helped to establish collaboration with the academic side of UH-Hilo and afford our students experience in the newsprint industry."
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On the Net:
» uhhradio.com
» hilo.hawaii.edu/campus center/bomb
» ktuh.org
Disclaimer: Your columnist was at one time a host at KTUH and plans to attend a reunion of KTUH deejays, news folk, engineering staff and others, scheduled for June.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
