KFAI (90.3 FM

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

) is a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. The station broadcasts a wide variety of

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, and also airs programming catering to many of the diverse

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

groups of the region. KFAI has frequently been honored by local media critics for its shows and musical diversity (for instance, the local alternative weekly '' City Pages'' has frequently included it in the annual "Best of the Twin Cities" awards). The station offers public access services, so they encourage anyone in the community to make their own show and have it broadcast over the air. The station is part of Minnesota's AMPERS network and, since it covers the largest population, is considered by many to be the group's flagship station. The

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

stands for Fresh Air, Inc., the non-profit organization that owns KFAI. KFAI's studios are located on Riverside Avenue in Minneapolis, while its transmitter is located atop the

IDS Center The IDS Center is an office skyscraper located at 80 South 8th Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Completed in 1972, it is the tallest building in Minneapolis, and the tallest building in the state at a height of . It originally stood , thou ...

downtown Minneapolis The Central Minneapolis community is located in the central part of the city, consisting of 6 smaller official neighborhoods, and includes Downtown Minneapolis and the central business district. It also includes the many old Gristmill, flour ...

History

The station first went on the air with a 10-

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 ...

signal on May 1, 1978, after drawn-out deliberations with the

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 jurisdicti ...

, which was licensing a few

low-power FM Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower broadcasting" (more commonly " ...

stations at the time. The first home was in the belfry of the Walker Community Church in South Minneapolis. In

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

, the primary transmitter was moved from the roof of the Seward Co-op to the top of the

Foshay Tower The Foshay Tower, now the W Minneapolis – The Foshay hotel, is a skyscraper in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Modeled after the Washington Monument, the building was completed in 1929, months before the stock market crash in October of that year. It ...

in downtown Minneapolis and upgraded to 125 watts. The studios moved from the church two years later, when it moved to the second floor of a Butler Drug store on Lake Street. In

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

, studios were built especially for Fresh Air Radio at Cedar-Riverside near the University of Minnesota, where it remains today. A 170-watt West St. Paul

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

station went up in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

and was sold to Hmong Radio Broadcast, LLC in May 2020. In March 2007, KFAI's main transmitter moved to

, after the new owner of Foshay Tower evicted all current tenants of the building as part of a redevelopment plan to turn it into a hote

Since November 6, 2007, the station has been operating under an FCC Construction Permit with an upgraded effective radiated power of 900 Watts and an IDS Center tower height of 247 meters (811 feet) above ground level. This upgrade allows the station to have a stronger signal from the IDS Center which extends the station's coverage deeper into St. Paul and the southeast suburbs. Due to KFAI's limited signal power, programming is targeted to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Twin Cities communities. Three other IPR stations exist in Minneapolis-St. Paul:

KBEM-FM KBEM-FM (88.5 FM, "Jazz88") is a Minneapolis, Minnesota public radio station broadcasting a jazz format. The station is operated by the Minneapolis public school system and has been partnering since 1989 with the Minnesota Department of Transpo ...

(jazz),

KMOJ KMOJ (89.9 Hertz, MHz) is a community radio, community-oriented noncommercial FM radio, FM radio station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, airing a predominantly urban adult contemporary radio format. KMOJ's radio studios are on West Broadway Avenue in Mi ...

(urban), and

KUOM KUOM (770 AM) – branded ''Radio K'' – is a daytime-only non-commercial educational college/alternative rock radio station licensed to serve Minneapolis, Minnesota. KUOM covers the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, and extends its ...

(college/eclectic).

KVSC KVSC 88.1 FM band, FM in Saint Cloud, Minnesota is part of Minnesota's Independent Public Radio network. It is operated by St. Cloud State University and broadcasts a Freeform (radio format), freeform radio format. KVSC-FM is a non-commercial ...

, another college station in St. Cloud, Minnesota, can also be received by some area residents. The station had major plans for expansion into HD radio by the end of 2008. As part of this expansion, on November 16, 2008, the station switched over to a new 900-watt transmitter and directional antenna for its 90.3 FM signal, significantly increasing the broadcast coverage area. In mid-2010, KFAI changed its weekday programming schedule to institute an all-news format from 6-10 a.m. The change included the scheduling of ''

The Takeaway ''The Takeaway'' is a morning radio news program co-created and co-produced by Public Radio International and WNYC. Its editorial partner is WGBH-FM; at launch the BBC World Service and ''The New York Times'' were also editorial partners. In ...

'', a three-hour syndicated show from Public Radio International (PRI). Some long-time listeners and programmers were upset with the change, charging the station with abandoning its volunteer programming model. ''The Takeaway'' was dropped two years later, after PRI announced the decision to reduce it to a one-hour show.

Programming

KFAI's programming is highly eclectic and uses block programming, so that, for example, one might find a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

program followed by an hour of news about

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

issues, or a

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

program followed by an hour of

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

readings or an hour of

Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related to ...

programming. Although programs almost always occupy the same blocks from week to week, programs often have little or nothing to do with what precedes or follows them. Some of the station's programming is carried on other radio stations. The show ''Crap from the Past'', by Ron Gerber, airs on several stations in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, plus one in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

(in addition to a few

Internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

streams). KFAI offers archives of locally produced shows, and many of the station's various hosts and programmers also offer their own archived broadcasts at other sources.

Notable personalities

*Barb Abney *

Dale Connelly Dale Connelly (born 4 October 1955) was co-host (with Tom Keith, aka Jim Ed Poole) of ''The Morning Show'' on Minnesota Public Radio. The program was first carried on KSJN at frequency 91.1 (now KNOW-FM, later on KSJN at 99.5 and finally on KCMP ...

Charlie Parr Charlie Parr is an American country blues musician. Born in Austin, Minnesota, he spent part of his childhood in Hollandale before starting his music career in Duluth. His influences include Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Reverend Gary Davis, Dave ...

* Mark Wheat

References

External links

KFAI official website

KFAI's page on StylusCityHigher than Fi
{{coord, 44.9761, N, 93.2727, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title Radio stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul Independent Public Radio Community radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1978 1978 establishments in Minnesota

History

Programming

Notable personalities

See also

References

External links