Cruising the airwaves

Portland State radio station KPSU is at the tail end of its quest to bring an FM signal to campus with the end of its three-week fundraiser, Radio Revival.

This Friday, KPSU will hold its second annual KPSU Kruise. Students and fans can board the Portland Spirit for a late-night cruise with Portland bands Grandparents and Onuinu, all in an effort to raise funds and help KPSU achieve FM airwave status.

“Radio Revival is a series of events from April 22 through May 10,” KPSU Station Manager Jay Turk said. “The events are all aimed with the common goal of raising funds, raising friends and raising enthusiasm around KPSU’s [upcoming] opportunity to get a LPFM signal.”

LPFM, short for low-power frequency modulation, is an FM signal less strong than commercial signals. An LPFM signal only gets 100 watts to a commercial’s near-1,000, but an LPFM signal would cover KPSU’s key demographics.

The events held to raise funds for the LPFM signal have ranged from trivia nights to live music to a car smash that charged per swing.

“It’s taking the place of our annual pledge drive, which we do every year around this time, but we kind of repurposed it a little bit by putting it under the banner of Radio Revival,” Turk said. “We feel that there’s something lacking in the Portland radio spectrum. The vast majority are owned by corporate media conglomerations: Clear Channel, Intercom, CBS Radio—and there’s one group called Alpha Broadcasting that is an Oregon-based company, but it’s still very much a commercial radio conglomerate. They own about seven stations in the Portland area.”

Commercial radio often lacks “the voices of college students, the voices of women, the voices of racial and sexual minorities—you’re really just getting one side of the picture, one side of the story,” Turk said.

Keegan Meyer, current promotions director and recent manager-elect for KPSU, thinks that the best is yet to come for the station.

“I am really excited to reform and be a part of the golden age of FM radio,” Meyer said. “Although KPSU has this opportunity for FM frequency, the LCRA [Local Community Radio Act] is making it a golden age for radio again.

“In a way it’s like we are competing with these commercial radio companies, potentially changing how corporate radio does its programming,” Meyer continued. “ I’m really stoked to be able to be a part of that movement and to change how people think about radio.”

The LCRA was passed by Congress in 2010 and soon after signed into law by President Barack Obama. The act aims to get smaller, 100-watt frequencies (like the frequency that KPSU is trying to obtain), traditionally used by commercial radio stations to push their signals to greater distances, set up for
smaller stations.

“These giant corporate behemoths came in with bags of money and tons of lawyers and applied for these signals,” Turk said. “Even today, years later, there’s a backlog of these applications. Organizations like KPSU haven’t been able to get in there. The LCRA removes that backlog.

“We feel that as a media representative of Portland State, the largest university in Oregon, we…have a voice to add to the public dialogue that isn’t there now,” Turk explained. “Nobody has a voice for students in that capacity. There are at least 100,000 listeners in Portland that would have a vested interest in a station coming from PSU. Everything we’re doing right now is with that interest in mind.”

The KPSU Kruise II serves as the culmination of Radio Revival’s fundraising run. The first KPSU Kruise was a big success for the station, and the second in the series, according to Meyer, is shaping up similarly.

“The outlook on the cruise that is coming up is for it to be a lot more genuine,” he said. “Last year’s was our first concert…on the Portland Spirit. It was one of the biggest concerts we’ve ever done. We’ve never dealt with that kind of money before.

“This year we know what to expect and we know how to prepare for it,” he continued. “It’s more genuine and more KPSU. The staff is planning to wear captain hats, it should be a lot more of a genuine cruise this year, and there’s no shakiness from our end this time, no nervousness.”

Tickets for last year’s cruise ran for $22 apiece, and this year’s cruise costs $15. There is a special code for currently enrolled students that will grant $10 tickets. The code for the student discount is LPFM.

“The $10 ticket price for the Portland Spirit cruise is a steal for students,” Meyer said. “Cruises on the Portland Spirit are generally always over $40. This is a steal.”