KUSD (AM)
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KUSD was a
non-commercial educational A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (television advertisement, TV ads or radio advertisement, radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Fed ...
radio station in
Vermillion, South Dakota Vermillion (; "The Place Where Vermilion is Obtained") is a city and the county seat of Clay County. It is in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, United States, and is the state's 12th-most populous city. According to the 2020 census, the ...
, United States, licensed to the
University of South Dakota The University of South Dakota (USD) is a public research university in Vermillion, South Dakota, United States. Established by the Dakota Territory legislature in 1862, 27 years before the establishment of the state of South Dakota, USD is t ...
(USD) from 1922 until 1992. It was deleted two years later after the university decided not to replace a transmission tower that had fallen and shuttered the station. At the time of its deletion, KUSD was the oldest broadcasting station in the state of South Dakota; it was the predecessor to the present radio service of
South Dakota Public Broadcasting South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB) is a network of non-commercial educational television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of South Dakota. The stations are operated by the South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunication, ...
.


History

KUSD traditionally traces its start to May 20, 1922. The university was issued a license for a "Technical and Training School" station, 9YAM. A then-current student and future winner of the
Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...
,
Ernest Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American accelerator physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for ...
, was made responsible for station operations and built the transmitter. Originally there were no formal standards about which stations could make broadcasts intended for the general public, and stations under a variety of license classifications began broadcasting. On December 1, 1921, the
U.S. Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econo ...
, which regulated radio at the time, adopted a regulation establishing a broadcasting station category, which set aside the wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz) for entertainment broadcasts, and 485 meters (619 kHz) for market and weather reports. On May 26, 1922, a telegram was sent to the University of South Dakota, authorizing a broadcasting station, with the sequentially assigned call letters WEAJ and operating on the 360 meter "entertainment" wavelength. In late 1923, the station was reassigned to 1060 kHz, which was changed a year later to 1080 kHz. By this time, programs included concerts and basketball games. The call letters were changed to KUSD in October 1925. (The KUSD call sign had been previously assigned to the steamer '' City of Honolulu'', which caught fire and sank in October 1922.) That same year, it was shut down for two weeks for rebuilding and to connect it with the new auditorium on the USD campus; it emerged as the first 250-watt outlet in the state. In June 1927, KUSD moved to 620 kHz, and on November 11, 1928, with the implementation of the
Federal Radio Commission The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was a government agency that regulated United States radio communication from its creation in 1927 until 1934, when it was succeeded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was established by ...
's
General Order 40 The Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, dated August 30, 1928, described the standards for a sweeping reorganization of radio broadcasting in the United States. This order grouped the AM radio band transmitting frequencies into thre ...
, it was assigned to 890 kHz, on a timesharing basis with
KFNF KFNF (101.1 FM, "Today's Best Country") is a radio station licensed to serve Oberlin, Kansas.The station is owned by Armada Media Corporation and licensed to Armada Media - McCook, Inc. It airs a Country A country is a distinct part of th ...
in
Shenandoah, Iowa Shenandoah is a city in Page County, Iowa, Page and Fremont County, Iowa, Fremont counties in Iowa, United States. The population was 4,925 at the time of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census. Once referred to as the "seed and nursery ...
, and
WILL Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...
in
Urbana, Illinois Urbana ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents i ...
. Broadcasting for a total of hours a week, it aired lectures, concerts, and even a course in conversational Spanish. Football games were also aired; for instance, one game between
South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...
and
North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...
, reproduced by the station on the basis of wire reports, also featured the normal KUSD program—including a talk on "The Young Victor Hugo" at halftime. In 1936, KUSD was reported to be allocated 1/8th time on its shared frequency, with a regular schedule of two hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and one hour on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, for an annual total of 350 hours. In 1937, WILL moved to a new frequency, which meant that KUSD was now timesharing with only KFNF. On March 29, 1941, with the implementation of the
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, ; ) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreements also addressed how frequency assignments were d ...
, stations on 890 kHz, including KUSD and KFNF, moved to 920 kHz. In 1952, KUSD moved to 690 kHz using a newly constructed two-tower directional antenna north of Vermillion, with the station now limited to daytime-only operation. However, this represented a significant expansion in output, as the station went from broadcasting for just three hours a day to operating from 9:30 a.m. to sunset. The KUSD School of the Air, with its educational programming, served 1,000 schools in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, and its output was also broadcast over 12 commercial radio stations. A companion FM station was built, KUSD-FM, which simulcast the AM station and carried additional programming from sunset until midnight. The AM station later added a restricted nighttime operation with only 20.6 watts. The KUSD stations joined
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 ...
at its launch in 1971; KUSD-FM upgraded from a 10-watt station to 50,000 watts in 1975, giving it regional coverage and allowing for some split programming between AM and FM. KUSD-TV, the first transmitter in the
South Dakota Public Broadcasting South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB) is a network of non-commercial educational television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of South Dakota. The stations are operated by the South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunication, ...
television service, was established in 1961. In 1992, damage to guy wires holding up one of the KUSD AM transmitter towers caused it to collapse. South Dakota Public Broadcasting directed the replacement of the fallen mast, but instead of replacing the felled tower, it was decided to end operations of the AM station, and on August 11, 1994, KUSD's license was deleted by the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC). At the time of its deletion, it was the oldest station in the state. The other tower was removed in 1998.


See also

*
List of initial AM-band station grants in the United States List of initial AM-band station grants in the United States reviews the first standard radio broadcasting stations that were authorized in the United States. This review begins with the introduction of the broadcasting service in the United S ...


Note


References


External links


Facility details for Facility ID 62408 (KUSD)
in the FCC Licensing and Management System
FCC History Cards for KUSD
(covering 1927–1980)


Further reading

*University of South Dakota entry, ''Education's Own Stations'', S. E. Frost, Jr., 1937, pages 404–410. *"A History of KUSD, the University of South Dakota Radio Station" (Masters thesis) by Adrian Eugene Dalen, University of South Dakota, 1949. {{Yankton-Vermillion Radio 1922 establishments in South Dakota 1992 disestablishments in South Dakota Defunct radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1922 Radio stations disestablished in 1992 Defunct mass media in South Dakota Vermillion, South Dakota University of South Dakota