Editing KCMP (section)

===St. Olaf Era===
The station which would later become 89.3 FM began with [[physics]] experiments in 1918 when five students and a professor built a small radio transmitter at [[St. Olaf College]], which used a wire [[antenna (radio)|antenna]] strung between the campus chapel and the college's "Old Main" (the tallest nearby building). The college was issued a "Technical and Training School" license with the call sign '''9YAJ''' for the experimental operations,<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3221816&view=1up&seq=545 "New Stations: Special Land Stations"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', June 1, 1921, page 3. The leading "9" in 9YAJ's call sign indicated that the station was located in the ninth Radio Inspection District, while the "Y" signified that it was operating under a "Technical and Training School" license.</ref> which was picked up as far away as New Zealand.<ref>"American Amateurs Heard in New Zealand", ''Radio News'', June 1923, page 2104.</ref> On May 6, 1922, the college was granted a broadcasting station license with the call sign [[WCAL (Minnesota)|WCAL]]. It would broadcast two programs per week during the school year at 770&nbsp;kc. in the [[AM band]]. One notable achievement by the station in the next few years was the broadcast of [[William Shakespeare]]'s play ''[[As You Like It]]'', apparently the first time a play had been broadcast on radio.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Shannon |first1=Ed |title=Column: Solving the mystery of WCAL |url=https://www.albertleatribune.com/2001/04/column-solving-the-mystery-of-wcal/ |website=Albert Lea Tribune|date=April 13, 2001 }}</ref>

In 1924, a financial crunch meant that the station might be forced to close down. The St. Olaf senior class and local newspaper, The Northfield News, campaigned for donations. Money came in from across [[Minnesota]] and several nearby states. This made WCAL the first listener-supported station in the United States. From 1928-circa 1954, WCAL was entirely listener-supported and received no direct financial support from St. Olaf College. In 1949, the station's card file held the names and addresses of over 60,000 donors. The station's AM signal was heard as far as the western United States, Mexico, Florida, Alaska and Canada.

WCAL first experimented with FM broadcasts in 1948.<ref name="davidgleason.com"/> Broadcasts on 89.3 FM were officially launched on October 1, 1967<ref name="davidgleason.com">{{Cite web |url=http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive%20BC-YB/1968/B%201%20Broadcasting%20Yearbook%201968.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=February 6, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110206020436/http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive%20BC-YB/1968/B%201%20Broadcasting%20Yearbook%201968.pdf |archive-date=February 6, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> as a sister to the established AM, which was one of the first radio stations in the state. A few years later in 1971, WCAL became one of 90 founding members of [[National Public Radio]] organized by the [[Corporation for Public Broadcasting]]. WCAL-FM was operated by St. Olaf for over 37 years and was known as "Classical 89.3" later in its history, playing what many considered to be "alternative" [[classical music]] along with a variety of [[religion|sacred]] music and religious programming.

Twenty-four-hour broadcasts began in 1984, and a new 100-kilowatt transmitter went on-air in 1991, meaning that the station could be picked up across most of the Twin Cities region (Northfield is on the southern edge of the area). The transmitter was placed on land owned by the [[University of Minnesota]] in exchange for WCAL turning over its time-share hours on 770&nbsp;kHz, which had been shared with [[KUOM]] for many years.  Because 770&nbsp;kHz is an FCC-defined [[clear-channel]] frequency occupied by full-time station [[WABC (AM)|WABC]] in New York City, it could not be used by other stations at night; as daytime-only stations, WCAL and KUOM each broadcast an average of about six hours per day. The shutdown of WCAL allowed KUOM to broadcast the maximum amount of time allowed by the license.

WCAL's [[radio format]] focused on [[European classical music]] [[radio programming]] and related musical genres. The "Christmas at St. Olaf" program was one of several annual events that were broadcast by the station. Over the years, the station regularly broadcast [[religious broadcasting|religious]] services, and expanded them into a number of different languages. Another first that WCAL takes credit for is the first play-by-play broadcast of a sporting event. The station eventually became affiliated with [[AMPERS]], the [[independent radio|independent]] [[public radio]] network in Minnesota.