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In 1989 a group of music-loving KCBX volunteers got together and started a music festival.  They named it Live Oak.  KCBX embraced Live Oak from day one because it reflected the artistic and community values of KCBX. 

Live Oak was modeled after the Strawberry music festival which most of the founders had experienced.  The concept was a feel-good festival featuring acoustic influenced music with lots of opportunity for community building.

To help with that community building Live Oak had its own radio station: aKorn radio.  Akorn was also inspired by Strawberry with their epic Hog Ranch Radio.  These are low-powered FM radio stations designed to be received within the boundaries of the campsite and only for the duration of the festival. The frequencies are carefully selected to not interfere with any local stations.  The programming was live music from the various stages interspersed with safety and informational announcements, interviews, archived music and conversation aimed at pumping up the festival vibes.  The broadcasts allowed festival attendees to stay in touch with upcoming events, to stay aware of any safety concerns and to enjoy some of the music from camp.

It became a concern that having an unlicensed transmitter might be a liability for KCBX.  In about 2019 Live Oak stopped broadcasting and moved to streaming the programming on the internet.  This is a poor substitute for a broadcast because no one on site can receive the signal.  The cell signal is very weak and over-extended with the population on site, making the broadcast essentially useless.  The loss of aKorn radio is sad for many people who attend Live Oak and a lost opportunity to tie the festival together with a common communication channel.
However there is another idea that I think has a lot of merit:  Putting Live Oak on KCBX.  The KCBX signal is good at the festival location.  There are many benefits to this idea:

KCBX listeners enjoy and depend on certain regular programming during the weekend:  NPR news and Wait-Wait are two of the most popular.  These shows can still exist in their time slots and they will be enjoyed by a wider audience than usual on a Live Oak weekend if we encourage our audience to bring portable radios to camp.  During other times of the weekend and Friday KCBX is airing music shows the genres of which influence the tastes of our Live Oak audience. 

If you look at the time grid below you will see that there are 10 main stage time slots that coincide with music programming on KCBX.  During these time slots Live Oak main stage acts could be put on KCBX air seamlessly without disrupting the flow.  I would argue live performances aired during these time slots would enhance the programming and be appreciated by our listening audience.

 

Acts could be booked that reflect the tastes of the existing radio audience.  For example, for the Live oak set that woiuld occur during Rhythm Retrospective we could book a Boogie Woogie act, maybe Carl Sonny Leyland himself for the first year.  Following years we find acts jazz, swing or Dixieland related bands.  Our music audience is open minded and appreciative of many music styles.

Technical logistics:

The mix:  In the old days we used to create our radio mix and our recordings in an acoustically isolated environment.  This is the ideal approach but it can be costly and time consuming.  Instead of an isolated mix, I think we can use an augmented feed from the main mix.  This would eliminate 90% of the effort and expense we use to expend.  To make the feed suitable for broadcast and recording we absolutely need to add ambience mics.  This is a basic precept of live recording and broadcasting.  Doing this is fairly easy.  Four mics placed strategically can bring the needed ambient sounds to a mix position.  I have connections with experienced volunteers who could staff this mix position and do what is needed to turn out a quality audio feed.

The studio link:  Modern digital audio codecs allow transmission of good quality audio over the internet. We could easily get our signal to the KCBX studio.

Cost:  Below is a tentative budget for doing this project.  I am ready to commit time and money to this project and to knock on doors to sell sponsorships to make the money happen.