UCSD, KSDO Signal Cooperation in Transmitter, Program Exchange

UC San Diego will soon begin public-service broadcasting on KSDO-AM and FM, and the FM station in return will use the university’s transmitter on Mt. Soledad to reach the rapidly growing North County.

The unusual joint agreement also calls for the KSDO stations’ parent, Gannett Corp., to help UCSD obtain an FM license from the federal government for an educational station. Both UCSD and station officials expect difficulty in that effort because the area frequencies set aside for educational broadcasting are in the same band as those reserved for Mexico.

KSDO approached UCSD about a year ago to see whether the university would be interested in sharing the 120-foot transmitter tower on Mt. Soledad. The tower was built four years ago to handle radio paging, telephone microwave and other university-related functions.

“We had been looking and looking and looking” for a solution, Chris Conway, president and general manager of KSDO, said Wednesday, “and finally our chief engineer, Jack Rabell, came up with the idea of talking to UCSD.”

KSDO’s FM station, which has the call letters KSWV and is also known as the Wave, now has its transmitter on San Miguel Mountain east of Chula Vista. It cannot broadcast at maximum power because of potential interference with Mexican stations.

“By using the UCSD tower, we can increase our power and become a lot stronger in (the prime market) of North County,” Conway said.

Because of longstanding environmental controversy over building new transmitters in the county, Conway said, construction of a separate KSDO tower “is almost out of the question.”

UCSD readily agreed to negotiate because of its desire to incorporate broadcasting into its academic programming, said Laura Long, assistant vice chancellor for business services.

14-Foot Antenna

“This agreement gives us the ability to get broadcast time and present the university to the San Diego community, continue an intern program between us and KSDO, as well as have them facilitate our attempting to get a license for our own station,” Long said.

KSDO will pay the university $18,000 a year to use the tower. The station plans to put a 14-foot antenna on top of the existing transmitter.

Already, UCSD is providing two 60-second public-service messages about upcoming university events to both the KSDO stations during the morning and afternoon drive-time periods. One-hour of public programming will begin later this year under the sponsorship of the communications department.

“The idea would be to have a radio broadcasting course for a certain number of students to learn how to make radio programs, to be taught both theory and practice,” said Robert Horwitz, a professor in the department.

“We haven’t started any of this yet since we still need to hire somebody on a part-time basis to oversee that class, and we will require some sort of university-wide media committee to determine what will go out over the air.”

Horwitz said the current UCSD radio station might also be permitted to contribute to the hourlong programming. That station has no radio frequency, and its signal is sent through power lines and on cable to the immediate area around the La Jolla campus.

‘A Real Coup’

“Those of us who negotiated with KSDO envision the programming as being educational or community-oriented toward issues on campus or related to the area,” Horwitz said.

“It’s a real coup to get the university a real presence on radio in San Diego.”

But the goal toward a permanent presence with its own license could prove more difficult, despite the promise of Gannett’s help.

Under the agreement, KSDO must give UCSD a second hour of public programming if the university fails to obtain an FM license within two years.

“We will help (UCSD) in the initial stages (of applying for a license) since the field of broadcasting is new to them and we have a certain level of expertise,” said KSDO president Conway. “Our function will be to say to them what essentially they can do, what options and approaches are available.”

The FM band available for educational stations is crowded in the Southern California area, and San Diego is sandwiched between Los Angeles and Mexico.

“It’s a tough challenge, but a UCSD station would be a great asset to the area,” Conway said.

KPBS--with its National Public Radio affiliation on the San Diego State University campus--is currently the only educational station with a broadcast license in San Diego.

“I’m not real optimistic,” Horwitz said. “The real question is whether Gannett can convince the State Department to talk to Mexico about our getting an unused frequency that is now allocated for Mexico.

“Obviously, we have to protect unused Mexico signals, and it could be fairly tricky with the technical things that are needed to shield a potential signal that we would use from interference with Mexico,” he said.