Ahem.
104.9 FM pic.twitter.com/pga1B7k11g
— Hollow Earth Radio (@hollowearth) September 19, 2017
With a track featuring “broken keyboard playing random notes w/ frogs in the woods,” a project three years in the making has crackled to life over the airwaves of the Central District. Tuesday, KHUH, 104.9 FM, officially began broadcasting as a “low power” radio station.
E Union’s Community-run Hollow Earth Radio powers the station with a schedule of eclectic and local music as well as neighborhood current affairs and issues. You can also continue to listen to HER online at hollowearthradio.org.
CHS first covered the plans for a micro-wave of micro-broadcasters to join the Seattle airwaves and secure low power FM broadcast permission from the FCC while deploying new broadcasting towers and equipment back in September 2014. A quest to raise $25,000 to launch the station was completed successfully last year.
Though the Hollow Earth community broadcasts have been available online for a decade, those involved with the station said the FM signal was import to reach neighbors without access to computers and that the low power station’s launch would also be a symbolic victory for alternative radio broadcasting.
KHUH will share the Central District and nearby radio dial with Seattle University which launched its own low power FM station in February 2016 on KXSU, 102.1 FM.
With the right twiddling of knobs and careful antenna alignment, you might be able to pick up either station around Capitol Hill — though some will experience an interesting mash-up, of sorts, as Tacoma hip-hop station KUBE also bleeds through at 104.9 FM.
Hollow Earth is volunteer-run and community-backed. You can learn more at hollowearthradio.org.
@hollowearth If we both hold the antenna while standing just like this we can hear KHUH over the Tacoma hip hop station! #KHUH pic.twitter.com/tDmVYhUQF2
— Phil Neff (@cascadiasolid) September 20, 2017
