KHSU (90.5 FM) is an

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

-member

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

, licensed to

Arcata, California Arcata (; ; ) is a city adjacent to the Arcata Bay (northern) portion of Humboldt Bay (United States), Humboldt Bay in Humboldt County, California, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, Arcata's population was 18,857. A ...

, United States. The station is currently owned by

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt or Humboldt) is a public university in Arcata, California. It is one of three polytechnic universities in the California State University (CSU) system and the northernmost c ...

. KHSU also holds licenses for additional stations running

Radio Bilingüe Radio Bilingüe is a non-profit public radio network with Latino control and leadership, is the only United States national distributor of public radio programming in the Spanish language. It is based in Fresno, California. This satellite netw ...

and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

. KHSU provides the region encompassing

Humboldt Humboldt may refer to: People * Alexander von Humboldt, German natural scientist, brother of Wilhelm von Humboldt * Wilhelm von Humboldt, German linguist, philosopher, and diplomat, brother of Alexander von Humboldt Fictional characters * Hu ...

and Del Norte counties in California as well as portions of

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

and Mendocino counties in California and

Curry County, Oregon Curry County is the southwesternmost county in the U.S. state of Oregon located on the South Coast. As of the 2020 census, the population was 23,446. The county seat is Gold Beach. The county is named for George Law Curry, a two-time govern ...

, with news, information and entertainment from public radio producers like

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

(NPR),

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...

(PRI) and

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and o ...

(APM).

History

Early years

The station began as a radio classroom experiment in 1941 on the campus of what was then Humboldt State College, with broadcasts airing on KIEM for two months until the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

. The radio program resumed in full in 1947, when KHSC signed on as a 10-watt

carrier current Carrier current transmission, originally called wired wireless, employs guided low-power Radio frequency, radio-frequency signals, which are transmitted along electrical conductors. The transmissions are picked up by receivers that are either conne ...

station. In January 1960, Humboldt State applied for the first non-commercial radio license on a California college or university campus. The new station signed on for the first time on October 17, operating at 10 watts on 90.5 FM. It became KHSU in 1972, shortly after Humboldt State was elevated to university status.

NPR membership

The station remained almost exclusively a student training ground until 1982, when it boosted its power to 100 watts and moved to 91.5 FM. At that point, the station began a gradual process of professionalization, picking up an

membership in 1984. It returned to 90.5 in October 1984, this time with an increased signal of 9,000 watts. In 1988, facing the prospect of waiting five years to qualify for grants from the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; stylized as cpb) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to ...

, KHSU shuffled its budget in order to enable it to hire the five full-time employees it needed for CPB funding within only five months of applying.

2019 staff cutbacks

On April 11, 2019, KHSU took a dramatic change in focus, personnel, and programming. All staff and volunteers were called to a 9 a.m. meeting, at which the memo below was given to those present, essentially firing of all but two staffers, though both later resigned. HSU administrators then enlisted HSU police officers to escort all those involved off campus. Door locks were changed, the station office was closed and phones disconnected, and KHSU began re-broadcasting programming from

North State Public Radio North State Public Radio (KCHO 91.7 Chico/KFPR 88.9 Redding) is an NPR-affiliated public radio broadcaster which has main stations in the Northern California cities of Redding and Chico. It airs news and public affairs, classical music, talk ...

in Chico, California. Volunteers, listeners, legislators and faculty members disagreed with HSU administrators' cutbacks, taken just a few days after a successful Fund Drive with no mention of the pending staff cuts. Subsequently, in 2021 HSU signed an agreement with Capital Public Radio, as NSPR was rendered a shell after CapRadio's operational takeover in 2020. NSPR currently operates KHSU stations from its offices in Chico.

Program services and transmitters

In addition to its main program service, KHSU offers the

on two transmitters and

on one transmitter. These stations are not managed by CapRadio.

References

External links

{{NPR California HSU Radio stations established in 1960 California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt Mass media in Humboldt County, California NPR member stations