KPRI

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KPRI-FM (also 102.1 KPRI) is an adult album alternative radio station in San Diego, California that plays blues, reggae, folk, pop, and rock music from the mid-1960s to the present. The philosophy of KPRI is "Rock Without Rules!" The idea is to provide quality music without drawing from one particular musical format. At the same time, the music selections must be relevant artistically. Most of KPRI's programming, including air personality breaks, and even local traffic reports, is pre-recorded.

KPRI-FM is the only locally owned and operated commercial station in the San Diego market, and is operated by the Compass Radio Group, Inc. The station was formed on April 1, 1996 by two partners, Robert "Bob" Hughes and Jonathan Schwartz. Both had backgrounds in the corporate side of radio and had always hoped to create a station that was commercially viable while at the same time critically successful.

KPRI is licensed by the FCC with antenna and tower in San Marcos, California. The station is licensed to Encinitas, California. KPRI's transmission emits a city-grade signal that cover San Diego County but due to the topography of the county there are certain areas the station serves better than others. San Diego's affluent North County Coastal areas receive the signal without interruption while areas in main San Diego such as Pacific Beach or La Jolla have degraded "in home" reception due to interference caused by Mount Soledad. Previous ownership had set up repeaters (low-power transmitters) scattered across San Diego to improve transmission of the radio station, but because those created as many problems as they solved, KPRI stopped using them in 1997.

KPRI is undergoing a construction permit to move to an antenna atop Mount Soledad. This will boost ERP from 14,500 watts to 32,000 watts. It will most likely share the antenna with 102.9 FM, a Univision-owned station.

[edit] The Original Station

The original KPRI (at 106.5 FM) is believed to have been started in the 1950’s when FM was new and little used. Their format was rock music. They existed until the mid 1980’s. Their main competition was KGB-FM, which dominated in the local radio station ratings (for rock music stations). When “91X” (XETRA-FM) became extremely popular in the early 1980’s with its “New Rock” format, KPRI lost more market share until they were sold, changing format as well as their call letters. Studios at the time were adjacent to Montgomery Field airport just north of Aero Dr.

According to David Tanny operator of The San Diego Radio News website: "The KPRI that is back is basically the station that used to be KCBQ-FM ten years ago on 105.3 until it shifted radio transmitter locations from San Diego to Oceanside's 102.1 in a complex deal swap. In 2002, 102.1 picked up the KPRI calls when that became available. It was KXST from 1996-2002 between those times".

While operating as KXST, the station called itself "Sets-FM" and its programming featured sets of two or more songs by the same artist. That format was dropped with the switch to the KPRI call letters.

[edit] KPRI current programming

• The House of Blues Radio Hour
• The KPRI Morning Show with Madison
• Meg Banta in the Midday
• Live from Studio-i
• Sunday Morning Unplugged
• Robert in the Late Afternoon

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KPRI