KJHK 90.7 – KJHK

It may have been a small college radio station, but it took the muscle of the US Army to get KJHK-FM 90.7 on the air. At 7 a.m. on September 6, 1975, a Sikorsky helicopter from the “Flying Cranes” of the Kansas National Guard’s 137th Aviation Company hovered noisily over Mount Oread. Enlisted by station personnel, the soldiers and their helicopter were there to hoist KJHK’s new antenna into place on the radio tower behind Marvin Hall. The job would be done by 10 a.m., but it would be another five weeks of paperwork-related delays before the station finally hit the airwaves.Over the next 35 years (and up to the present day) KJHK would serve as Lawrence’s iconoclastic, self-described “Sound Alternative” to mainstream commercial radio. Its history has often been as colorful as the music it has played.KJHK was hardly KU’s first foray into radio. KFKU, the University’s initial venture in radio broadcasting, had made its official debut on December 15, 1924, but a combinatio