Brian Van Buren KAMP general manager

KAMP Student Radio, the University of Arizona's only student-powered radio station, needs your help.

Five years ago, the students voted in favor of adding a $1 per semester refundable student fee to fund the operation of KAMP Student Radio. The collection of the fee was slated to run for five years, and then be put back up for renewal by the student body. This year is when the students must decide whether or not they want to continue this fee for the next five years. I ask that you, the students of the University of Arizona, vote in favor of this referendum in the elections this week.

KAMP Student Radio is a non-commercial radio station ÷ we don't sell advertising. The fact that we don't have to sell ourselves as a commercial entity means we are not beholden to what is "popular" musically in order to boost ratings. College radio is a unique medium today, one where economic pressure does not dictate programming. Our DJs play what they want, not because they are told to, but because they like the music. We are a student-run organization, which means that the DJs you hear playing the music, the news DJs covering campus events like the school shooting last year, and the sports DJs calling play-by-play of football, basketball, baseball and softball games are all your peers. If you wanted, you could be one of them too ÷ we are a volunteer organization, after all.

Since the fee has been in effect, the growth and capacity of KAMP Student Radio has increased dramatically. We recently purchased a new low-powered broadcast antenna and, in January, began broadcasting on AM 1570 for the first time in four years. The money has allowed us to pay for the costs of webcasting, allowing us to be heard on the Internet ÷ kamp.arizona.edu ÷ all over the world. (Twenty-five percent of our Internet listeners are from outside the United States.) The fee has paid for new studio and mobile DJ equipment, computers, telecommunication costs, hiring technical advisers and two studio moves. Without the fee, none of this would have been possible.

Losing the student fee now would have a severely negative impact on the operation of the station. First, KAMP is a finalist for the only LPFM broadcast frequency available in Tucson. In order to remain in consideration, KAMP must show that it is capable of raising the money necessary to pay for the license as well as the equipment needed to broadcast, which will total over $50,000. An LPFM signal would increase our on-air broadcast range dramatically (five to 10 miles as opposed to the half-mile range we have on AM.) We have saved up a significant portion of the money, but have not raised it all.

An extension of the KAMP fee would show the FCC that we have the necessary income. Also, as part of the Park Student Union renovations, a brand new state-of-the-art broadcast studio as well as business offices are being constructed for KAMP. Unless the fee is extended, we may not have enough money to pay for the move, much less purchase the equipment and furnishings needed to operate from the new facility. In addition, the Digital Millennium Act of 2002 has set royalty rates for Internet music broadcasting. Though the actual numbers are not definite, KAMP will eventually have to pay royalties in order to continue webcasting. Without the fee, we will not be able to pay those costs and will have to stop our Internet broadcast, which currently averages more than 1700 listeners per week.

I don't know what will happen if the fee is not extended. Whether or not KAMP can even exist without it is in question. But I do know that the 150 members of KAMP Student Radio, and the thousands of people who listen in every week on-air, in the dorms on channel 20 and on the Internet, do what they do for a reason ÷ because they care.

They listen because they want to hear the students' voice ÷ literally. That is what we are. Do not take away your voice. Vote yes on the KAMP Fee. Thank you.

Brian Van Buren is the general manager at KAMP Student Radio and is a journalism senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.