KTRU 96.1 FM: live radio from Houston

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KTRU 96.1 FM

They bought the frequency, not us.

Post-punk to bebop, picked by whoever's on next.

Two watts out of Hanszen College in 1967, under call letters that changed twice — with a move to the Rice Memorial Center basement and 580 AM in between — before the students settled on KTRU, for The Rice University, in 1969. The FCC licence came through in 1971 and put ten watts on 91.7 from the roof of Sid Richardson College, reaching about eight miles in every direction. Rice sold that frequency, tower and licence to the University of Houston for $9.5 million in 2010, over loud and sustained objection.

It took four years of student and alumni lobbying to get another one. KTRU came back on 96.1 on 2 October 2015, from an antenna on top of Rice Stadium, and the grid now runs well over a hundred volunteer shifts a week with no house rotation underneath it: bebop slop, Routes d'Afrique, Mutant Hardcore, Treasures of the 60s, Global Grooves Reggae, South Asian Indie.

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Houston, United States

KTRU 96.1 FM

They bought the frequency, not us.

Post-punk to bebop, picked by whoever's on next.

Two watts out of Hanszen College in 1967, under call letters that changed twice — with a move to the Rice Memorial Center basement and 580 AM in between — before the students settled on KTRU, for The Rice University, in 1969. The FCC licence came through in 1971 and put ten watts on 91.7 from the roof of Sid Richardson College, reaching about eight miles in every direction. Rice sold that frequency, tower and licence to the University of Houston for $9.5 million in 2010, over loud and sustained objection.

It took four years of student and alumni lobbying to get another one. KTRU came back on 96.1 on 2 October 2015, from an antenna on top of Rice Stadium, and the grid now runs well over a hundred volunteer shifts a week with no house rotation underneath it: bebop slop, Routes d'Afrique, Mutant Hardcore, Treasures of the 60s, Global Grooves Reggae, South Asian Indie.