Radio K - Studio and Transmitters

Studio and Transmitters

Initial broadcasts originated in the electrical engineering building on the Minneapolis campus, where a transmitter was mounted on the roof. The facilities were moved to Eddy Hall in 1936. Four decades later in 1974, the studios were moved again, this time to Rarig Center just across the Mississippi River.

The station's main AM non-directional signal operates at 5,000 watts. Like most 5,000-watt AM stations in the Midwest, it has comparable range to a full-power FM station due to the area's flat land and excellent soil conductivity. It can picked up across the Twin Cities region, with grade B coverage in St. Cloud and Mankato. It is broadcast in daylight hours from U of M's St. Paul/Falcon Heights campus, though it is licensed to Minneapolis. It shuts off at sundown to protect WABC in New York City and KKOB in Albuquerque. The exact time that the station goes off the air varies from month to month, ranging from 4:30 p.m. in the winter to 9:00 p.m. in the summer.

At night, on weekends, and during the summer, Radio K also broadcasts on the 8-watt KUOM-FM 106.5. This frequency is shared with KDXL, a station at St. Louis Park High School in St. Louis Park, which began broadcasts around 1978 (originally at 91.7 FM). While class is in session at the school, the transmitter is used for KDXL and at all other times KUOM-FM is on. Setting up KUOM-FM took several years of negotiations with the Federal Communications Commission. In 2004, the transmitter was moved from the high school to a location in southwest Minneapolis near Lake Calhoun, near the St. Louis Park city limits, and raised to a greater height on a high rise residential building, expanding the range of both KUOM-FM and KDXL. Even with the increased height, the station operates at such low power that it can only be heard clearly in Minneapolis itself. It has fringe coverage at best in St. Paul (subject to occasional interference from a 197-watt translator of CCM outlet "The Refuge" in the southern suburb of Elko New Market), and cannot be heard at all even in most of the inner-ring Twin Cities suburbs.

Radio K also transmits via a 99-watt translator W264BR 100.7 FM which is co-located with the main AM transmitter. When it went online in late July 2005 the original 10-watt transmitter limited the covered area to only the U of M's St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses with spotty coverage even within the inner-ring suburbs. In early July 2011 the transmitter was upgraded to 99 watts. This significantly expanded the covered area to include almost all inner ring suburbs and many outer ring suburbs with the potential for reception as far away as Hastings, MN or Hudson, WI under favorable conditions.

Radio K operates another 99-watt translator K283BG at 104.5 FM whose transmitter is located near Radio-K's studios in Rarig Center on the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota. Before W264BR's transmitter was upgraded K283BG was important for offering at least secondary coverage to most of the inner-ring suburbs. Through these two translators KUOM is able to broadcast 24/7 all year. This substantially improves KUOM's ability to serve the entire metro area, especially between sunset and sunrise when the station's AM signal must sign off.