KENW has been serving Eastern New Mexico and West Texas for over 50 years. https://linktr.ee/kenw.publicmedia
1500 South Avenue K 52 Broadcast Center
Portales, NM
88130
| Monday | 8am - 5pm |
| Tuesday | 8am - 5pm |
| Wednesday | 8am - 5pm |
| Thursday | 8am - 5pm |
| Friday | 8am - 5pm |
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KENW-FM had a humble beginning in the attic of the Administration Building here at Eastern New Mexico University. In 1968, construction of the KENW-FM studios in the attic was aided by student volunteers; sound proofing was accomplished by tacking up large, waffled, egg case separators discarded from the university cafeteria. The FM station was on the air daily from 7 a.m. until around 10 p.m. and was operated totally by university students. The format was classical music, along with informational programs from international broadcast organizations, with some newscasts read by student announcers from copy produced by the UPI teletype machine located next to the front door leading into the attic studio.
On air, our low powered KENW-FM station identified itself as coming from “The Tower Room” in the Administration Building on the Campus of Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM. This was considered a much more dignified statement rather than saying that we were coming to you from the “attic” of the Administration Building. On Saturdays, during the live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera Season (December through April), the station was able to broadcast the opera by using a telephone line to bring the opera from New York City to Portales. The frequency response was not great, but opera buffs were thrilled to hear the live broadcasts.
Later, a carrier-current AM station was put on the air using the 680 KHz AM transmitter that was donated from the radio station in Los Alamos. That transmitter had been used during World War II to serve the city of Los Alamos with a type of broadcasting that could not be heard outside of the city (this was done to keep Los Alamos and its secret wartime mission hidden). When the KENW-AM station was put into service, it was very popular with the student operators because the AM station played the really good music.
