In 1969, freshman Syl Jones tried to start the first radio station at Augsburg. With the help of a few students, Jones started out by broadcasting through the public address system Monday through Friday. Lacking funds and proper equipment, Jones could never get a real radio station started at Augsburg.
In 1973, through the hard work of many students at the time, KCMR AM was born. The radio station received $750 dollars from the student council, and $2000 worth of equipment from the Devac company. With the money, they converted a study lounge on the 10th floor of Urness into a fully operational radio station. In 1975 KCMR became an affiliate of the ABC Entertainment News Network. They would broadcast news every hour, on the half hour, and presidential addresses. At the time, KCMR was one of the smallest stations to ever be granted an affiliation with ABC. As many students graduated and the leadership began to change, the space and equipment sat unused, and beginning in 1994, KCMR was not operational and remained that way until 2002. This would be the first inactivity of college radio at Augsburg for over 21 years. Students in 2002 decided to take the space on the top of Urness and start broadcasting again. After changing the call letters to KAUG and moving to the FM side of the dial, Augsburg College is back on the air and broadcasting through a closed circuit to the Augsburg College community and on the World Wide Web. |