Radio Station Gets Technology Boost

Associated Students Inc. is funding a $40,000 project that will help transition internet station KBeach to broadcast on an FM/HD signal.

                                               

Image from KBeach website.

This move to HD will allow KBeach to share a signal with CSULB's resident jazz station, KJazz.

"Once we have HD 3, it will make it more accessible in all the newer cars for anyone who is maybe interested in listening. They can just tune right in,” said KBeach Student Manager Dominic Paramo to the daily 49er.

This project will provide a whole new audience for the station, since right now only the people who search for the program online are the ones tuning in. The signal is expected to reach not only the Los Angeles area, but Orange County as well.

"I've never listened to the station before but, if I could access it from my car, well, maybe then I'd tune in once and awhile and see what's going on," said junior Orlando Cabrera, a child development major.

Switching to HD will allow not only cars to pick up the station, but it will also be able to be accessed through iphones and androids. 

"We are now able to go worldwide and we can reach anyone. And, while our target audience is still going to be the campus community, I think a lot of what we are doing can be of great interest to the rest of the world,” said John Trapper, acting general manager of Kbeach Radio and adviser for student media for Associated Students Inc to Shayne Schroeder at the CSULB website.

In the budget for the project is buying separate equipment that receives and transmits the HD signal.

“[HD radio] is definitely something that’s going to be still growing, and we’re going to be at the forefront of trying to establish a station in that route,” Paramo continued to say to the daily 49er.

They are expecting to broadcast on one of the HD channels under KJazz's existing 88.1 FM station by the end of the semester.

For more information about this project and KBeach in general, visit the KBeach website.

KBeach will soon share a signal with station KJazz.