On the sidebar of this website and the entrance to the studio, there’s a note describing KRLX (look to the left under the “WELCOME TO KRLX”). I’ve read these two sentences so many times, I barely pay attention any more. But the fact that we’re “independent and completely student-run since [krlx]’s origin” has always appealed to me; today, independent media is as important as it’s ever been. For a while now, I’ve wanted to know more about the history of our favorite student org on campus. So, inspired by Anne’s amazing piece in the winter (http://www.content.krlx.org/2018/02/krlx-archive-deep-dive-unearthed/), an insufficient Wikipedia page and the 70th anniversary of our first broadcast, I took a trip to the Carleton archives to find out more. Here’s a small portion of the amazing stuff that was found, focusing specifically on the start of KRLX—the most widely-referenced part of our history.
Seventy years ago this spring, visitors to campus would’ve marveled at students digging with shovels and pickaxes into a hillside by the Libe. These volunteers had to move earth—both literally and figuratively—to build an entirely student-contrived, built and run campus radio station. In January 1948, Carleton Faculty and CSA approved the project. Nine weeks later, after a massive fundraising campaign, KARL began broadcasting on April 14th,1948 from a two-roomed annex under the Libe. A self-sustaining station from the start, student volunteers led by GI-trained student technicians built amplifiers, crawled through tunnels and re-purposed a transmitter from a US Navy destroyer so that all of campus could hear shows “compiled and presented by and for students.”
(The first KARL board, 1948)
While the first broadcast could accidentally be heard in Iowa, KARL has always focused on the local community. In the early years the station stayed afloat with revenue from commercials for local businesses supplemented by larger sponsorships. For a long time, station contests were endorsed by Lucky Strike and KARL gave cigs for prizes.
Over seventy years a lot has changed. After the switch to a non-commercial, educational FM licence in 1975, the name was changed to KRLX (sound it out and you get karl-ten…roman numerals get it?) and we can no longer be sponsored by big tobacco. As we’ve moved from a literal hole in the ground to the top of Willis (where our antenna still broadcasts from) to our current residence in the basement of Sayles, the freedom and possibilities have only expanded with 24/7 broadcasting; this term a record-breaking 275 disc-jockeys are hosting shows and involved in the station. Carle-ten radio has always been a “homogeneous mish-mash of folk, rock, jazz, soul and blues” but with more jockeys and better ideas, we’re always expanding what we do.
As KARL co-founder, Edwin Danielson, described: “we have endured, with the help of shoestrings and bubble gum, time and patience,” and we can only hope that KRLX continues to do so for years to come!