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A Little History, A Long Tradition
KMSC went on the air in April, 1978 as a “Class D” non-commercial/educational
FM station operating at 88.3 megahertz with a power of 10 watts.
The studios were originally located on the third floor of Lewis Hall,
were moved to the basement of the Commons in 1989, and were finally moved
to the HLB library building where all mass communication activities and
facilities were consolidated in the mid-1990s.
KMSC is actually a revival of a student-built station with the call letters
KFMR that broadcast from Morningside between 1923 and 1928. KFMR was among
the earliest educational stations in the country (the very first educational
stations at the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin went on the air
in 1922).
The first Morningside station operated with 100 watts at 1150 on the AM
dial and was built and maintained by a Morningside physics student who
later built The Sioux City Journal’s commercial station, KSCJ. The
FCC (then the Federal Radio Commission) deleted the license for KFMC in
1928 when Morningside was convinced to use local commercial radio stations
for its educational broadcasts and gave up its license for KFMR.
Not much else is known about KFMR, though an entry in one Morningside
yearbook of the 1920s does demand that all classroom lectures be broadcast
over the station so that students could “attend class” while
staying in bed. Hmmmmm – maybe not the worst of ideas.
Going back a bit further in history, the Morningside archives contain
a few references to a “Marconi station” at Morningside built
in the nineteen-teens by some physics students. This was a pre-broadcast
radio station capably only of sending Morse code signals. The archives
are silent on how this station was used.
It wasn’t until the FCC adopted new non-commercial educational FM
regulations in the 1970s that Morningside got back into radio. The current
KMSC folks can only be thankful for the vision of the administration,
faculty, and students of that time who saw that radio had at place at
a school such as Morningside.
KMSC is vitally
interested in any photos or stories that any former staff and/or DJs have
about the station – especially the years in Lewis Hall and the Commons.
We’re trying to recreate the history of KMSC as best we can. Please
also correct any of the information presented above – it’s
all based on the poor records that we have in our files. Contact Dr. Mark
Heistad: heistad@morningside.edu,
712-274-5299.
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