KRLX is a student-run, freeform

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that does not, in some sense, involve commerce, at least relative to similar activities that do have a commercial objective or emphasis. For example, advertising-free community ...

campus radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produce ...

station

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

from

Northfield, Minnesota Northfield is a city in Dakota and Rice counties in the State of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 census. History Northfield was platted in 1856 by John W. N ...

. The station is affiliated with

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

. The station's call sign was chosen to read "KaRL-ten," since X is the

Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

for ten. KRLX broadcasts with 100 watts of power at 88.1 MHz and produces live

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

, expanding the station's reach to the world. The KRLX studios are located in the basement of the Sayles-Hill Campus Center, Carleton's student union; they feature basic production tools, a record library, and a live FM studio. The basement location is the motivation for the station's motto, "It's better on the bottom." KRLX is licensed for continuous broadcast, but because the station is student-run, the signal is present only when school is in session. Because Carleton does not offer a summer term, the station generally broadcasts September through June, though not during winter and spring breaks. In the fall of 2005, KRLX introduced

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

ing for all of its non-music shows, including all of the station's original news programming and Periscope. Beginning in 2005, The Princeton Review began ranking KRLX as one of the nation's top college radio stations. In 2009, KRLX was ranked the 12th best station in the country. By 2018, it had moved up to position #4 on the Princeton Review list of best college radio stations. In March 2020, Nicole Collins led the station in restarting its music arts and culture magazine, ''No Fidelity'', which had previously gone defunct in 2015. The publication also doubles as a record label, releasing compilations of music made by Carleton students. It has since published over ten issues and receives over $3,000 in funding annually.

History

Carleton College radio started in 1917 with the Music Department's initiative to bring radio to Northfield, MN. With an antenna mounted atop Willis Hall, this AM station broadcast until 1929 at an unknown frequency. In 1948 several students on the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, most veterans from the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, sought to construct and operate a radio station for students on the Carleton College campus. Using money raised from local businesses and

out-of-pocket An out-of-pocket expense (or out-of-pocket cost, OOP) is the direct payment of money that may or may not be later reimbursed from a third-party source. For example, when operating a vehicle, gasoline, parking fees and tolls are considered out-of ...

, they paid the college to allow them to construct a small studio dug out next to the foundation of Scoville Memorial Library on the South side. All electronics were handmade out of spare parts and the transmitter was from a scrapped

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

destroyer. The carrier current transmission was carried via coaxial cable through the Carleton College tunnel complex and radio station KARL 680 was born. The studios were relocated to the top floor of Willis (then the student union) somewhere before 1970. During the early 70s, station manager James Stiles led the effort to take the station to the broadcast airwaves. Washington DC Carl alums assisted with the FCC licensing process, and by 1975 a boxy FM transmitter had arrived on campus. After a winter of engineering challenges, chief engineer Ben Stiegler (with a lot of help from consultant John Rooks and the MPR engineering team) achieved the first broadcast and the greater Northfield area tuned in. For a brief time, KRLX retained the carrier current operation as a training ground for new DJs; eventually it was decommissioned. KRLX is one of the most popular student organizations at Carleton, with over 200 students DJs each trimester—roughly one out of every eight students.

Programming

KRLX's format-free nature makes for very diverse programming, and recently the station has started to program vertically so that similar shows are scheduled consecutively. Radio programs on KRLX run the gamut from bluegrass to independent hip hop to classical, and

DJs A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

are restricted only by

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC) guidelines. Despite the station's flexibility, there are several long-running programs that are consistent in format, if not in content. Bandemonium is a weekly show devoted to the works of a single band, tracing artists' history and influences. Periscope is the station's documentary program, and the station also programs evening news and hourly news briefs. Although almost all of KRLX's programming has its genesis at Carleton, the station also broadcasts the syndicated news program ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'' KRLX's content largely consists of music broadcasting, and the station contributes to the

College Media Journal CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...

Radio 200 chart. KRLX's programming can be heard around the world via live stream from their Web site.

Technical data

*Service Designation: Full Service FM Site *

Channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

& Class: 201A, 88.1

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

*FCC Facility Identification: 8867 *Location: **44° 27' 39.00" N

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

**93° 09' 21.00" W

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

Effective Radiated Power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...

(ERP): 0.1 kW (100

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

) *Antenna Height Above Average Terrain: 5 M

HAAT Haat or hat, even haat bazaar, is an open-air market that serves as a trading venue for local people in rural areas and towns of Indian subcontinent, especially in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Haat bazaars are conducted on a regular ba ...

*Antenna Height Above Mean Sea Level: 309 M

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

*Antenna Height Above Ground Level: 20 M AGL

External links

www.krlx.org KRLX web site

References

{{coord, 44.461, N, 93.156, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title College radio stations in Minnesota Radio stations in Minnesota Radio stations established in 1948