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UCLA alumnus Eric Rice is the music director for UCLA Radio. The student-run radio station broadc

Broadcasting live from Ackerman Grand Ballroom, but without a signal tower, is KLA, UCLA’s student-run radio station.

It’s a promising – albeit lesser-known – campus community that provides resources for local talent to get exposure and plenty of opportunities for students, staff and alumni to get involved. Listeners tune in not by riding the radio waves, but by surfing the Internet at UCLAradio.com.

KLA is one of the only free-format radio stations in Los Angeles; it’s up to the DJs to play whatever they want. Without the hindrance of Federal Communications Commission regulations, the music doesn’t have to be censored for foul language, so underground punk and hip-hop flows freely. But DJs are encouraged to keep their language clean.

“There is a lot of really good music and a lot of interesting, funny, weird DJs who are doing really cool cutting-edge stuff,” said KLA music director Eric Rice. Rice is a UCLA graduate and the host of the underground hip-hop and rare funk show “Soul-Fu.”

“Since we don’t have an FM signal, we can get away with things that the FCC would usually have a problem with,” said third-year philosophy student, DJ Raul Panzar, “El Vatoloco,” co-host of “The Midnight Yell, UCLA’s Most Ineptly Named Radio Show.”

Last year’s “Midnight Yell” shows included satirical political skits, like an Osama bin Laden gangsta rap, and a sarcastic public service announcement which encouraged kids to start smoking.

But Panzar’s show also included serious debates, including ones about gay marriage and the UCLA cadaver scandal. In this way, KLA can serve as a forum for the UCLA community to discuss important issues.

KLA includes three sports talk shows. “The Huddle” features live broadcasts of UCLA men’s basketball, football and baseball. Larry W. Brown, sports department manager and one of the hosts of “The Huddle,” sees Internet radio as a resource for UCLA students who want to keep up with local and nationwide sports while studying abroad.

Another show which connects UCLA’s resources to the world is “Sounds from the Vault of the Ethnomusicology Archive,” hosted by graduate of the ethnomusicology program and current archivist, John Vallier. In his program, Vallier plays music from the Archive’s 100,000 recordings, including unpublished field recordings from Taipei and Taiwan and pop, folk and classical music from Indonesia, Afghanistan and Africa as well as Japanese progressive rock.

Vallier likes to invite professors, visiting artists and graduate students into the studio to play music live or talk about their field of interest. He said that one of the benefits of the Internet medium is that his music can reach the worldwide ethnomusicology community.

But since it is only available online, KLA suffers from underexposure. Rice said that out of a worldwide audience, the webstream receives a mere 200 logins per day. And affording an air signal is out of the question.

“A lot of it is just that people don’t know that we’re here, it’s hard for us to promote it and it’s tough for people to listen because they have to be at a computer to hear it,” explained Rice.

But the small size of the audience makes it easy for listeners to interact directly with the DJs. Second-year anthropology student Gilbert Ramirez, also known as DJ “Gilby Dillon” enjoys talking to listeners via the BruinRadio instant message account while he’s on the air. He takes song requests, promotes friends’ Web sites and gives exposure to local artists.

“I’m always looking for local talent or any talent that’s struggling to get their music out,” said Ramirez. “I’m not going to close the door on anybody. You could even be a country music artist playing some honkytonk stuff, I don’t care. If you’re trying to get your music out, I’ll play it for you. That’s my job as a DJ.”

Ramirez recommended that anyone with an interest in music or broadcasting get involved with UCLA Radio. In his first year, Ramirez started off at UCLA Radio just because he thought it looked like something fun to do, and in a little more than one quarter he had his own show. This was a conversation starter at parties, where he would inevitably meet amateur musicians who were eager to give him demo CDs. Although Ramirez didn’t know anything about radio when he started, he’s now considering a career in broadcasting.

Due to a lack of DJs, KLA currently can only broadcast live less than 12 hours per day. So, there are plenty of openings for interested students, staff and alumni to get involved.