UNIVERSITY LOOKS TO UPGRADE NPR STATION

Seventeen months after KRCU ushered in National Public Radio in this area, the Southeast Missouri State University radio station is still an unknown to much of the general public.

Ferrell Ervin, chairman of the university's mass communications department and acting general manager of the station, said efforts continue to upgrade the station's equipment and boost its signal from 100 watts to 2,300 watts.

That should help expand the station's audience, but Ervin said the station also needs to do a better job of informing the public about KRCU and NPR programming.

He said the station and its community advisory board plan to begin an informational campaign in May.

"We really believe we have a quality kind of product to offer the audience," said Ervin. "We don't have at this time the size of audience we want because most people are either unfamiliar with public radio and its programming, or have gone without it for such a long time they are not really aware that KRCU exists as a public radio station."

He said it's often difficult to get people to change their radio-listening habits.

"One of the things you have is that people have station loyalty, and if a person over a number of years has listened to a specific station, he or she always tunes that station in," noted Ervin.

He said radio listeners don't scan through the channels as much as television viewers. "You don't have grazing on radio as you do on television."

Ervin said many people don't realize the diversity of programming offered. "They simply think of public radio as classical music."

But Ervin said the station offers not only classical music, but jazz, show tunes and Big Band music, as well as NPR news programs.

The station at 90.9 FM broadcasts 18 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to midnight.

Upgrading KRCU from a campus operation to an NPR station was initiated several years ago. The station moved from cramped quarters in the basement of the Grauel Building to new studios in a former apartment building at 338 N. Henderson.

The radio station broadcast its first NPR program on Nov. 15, 1990.

The university, he said, funds the station's operating costs, including about $8,500 annually just in NPR membership fees. In addition, Southeast pays for NPR programming costs.

The station, said Ervin, operates largely with student labor.

Currently, new equipment is being installed in the station's master studio and master production room.

That equipment, and a new antenna and a more powerful transmitter are being funded with a $250,000 federal grant, Ervin said.

Before the station can boost its signal to 2,300 watts, a new radio tower needs to be built, he explained.

The station's current antenna is on a tower on top of Academic Hall. But Ervin said the new, 30-foot-tall antenna weighs too much to install it on top of the existing tower.

Plans call for the new, 250-foot-tall metal tower to be built adjacent to the KRCU building.

But Ervin said outside funding is needed to pay for the new tower. "As much as the university wants to move ahead on this, it simply doesn't have the money in its general budget to be able to pay for replacing of the tower itself."

A new tower will cost an estimated $45,000 to $50,000, said Ervin.

The station's community advisory board last month began a fund-raising campaign to raise $100,000 to pay for the tower and other improvements.

Future plans call for setting up a newsroom, which would allow the station to provide some local news programming.

"It is an ambitious goal, but I think one that is achievable," Ervin said of the fund-raising drive.

Ervin said the board hopes to raise the money by July 1 so that the station will be in a position to seek bids on a new tower. He said it's hoped the tower could be erected by October.

Currently, KRCU's signal covers the city of Cape Girardeau and northward about 10 miles. Southward, the signal reaches to just south of Scott City, Ervin said.

But even within the immediate area, the signal is often weak, he acknowledged. "In hilly terrain, you can have (signal) dropouts with certainty."

Boosting the signal to 2,300 watts will allow the station's broadcasts to be heard from basically Perryville on the north to Sikeston on the south, said Ervin.

With a more powerful signal, the station can reach a larger audience. But KRCU will still have to work to attract listeners, he said. "That is going to be something that we will be working on for years."