By Chris Riemenschneider


You used to only be able to hear it at 770 AM, and not after sunset. Then it started broadcasting all day on an FM frequency, but only in the summer.

Finally, after years of lobbying that date back to when Mark Wheat was still working the knobs there, University of Minnesota student station Radio K now has its own FM frequencies that you can hear all day, every day. "It's all ours now," marketing director Ellie Bjorklund bragged of the two-frequency setup: 104.5 FM in the west metro and 100.7 FM in the east.

The K clan hopes to increase the power of those frequencies soon, something that the fall pledge drive (Oct. 23-30) will work toward. Bjorklund said the 24/7/365 changeover finally came about thanks to some complex policy change made by the Federal Communications Commission. There's something you don't often hear: college radio staffers singing the FCC's praises.