KLRU 18.1
KLRU’s main channel airs on 18-1 over the air. KLRU reflects, celebrates and inspires Central Texas through creative excellence, community engagement and lifelong learning. In addition to providing locally produced and quality national television programming from PBS and other sources.

KLRU Create 18.2
More often called “ do-it-yourself”, the program genres seen on Create TV include viewers’ favorite public television series and specials on cooking, travel, arts and crafts, gardening, home improvement and other lifestyle interests. Create TV, airing on 18-2, was launched to serve viewers’ increasing interest in “do-it-yourself” programs. Create was designed for round-the-clock broadcast of the most popular lifestyle and how-to programming seen on public television – where lifestyle programming got its start!

KLRU-Q 18.3
In July 2009, KLRU launched a new locally-programed channel called KLRU-Q featuring entertaining and inspiring shows about history, music, science, nature, food and more. Q, which airs on 18-3, is structured in ‘blocks’ of programming throughout the day, with genres chosen specifically for the Austin audience. For example every day at 11 p.m. you can tune to Q and find a music program like Austin City Limits or an American Masters documentary on a music legend or every Thursday at 8 p.m. you can watch Q to find a program on the theme of Sailors, Soldiers and Spies like Battlefield Britain, M15 or Carrier. Other Monday to Friday highlights of this channel are the morning and afternoon tea Britcom blocks at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.; the talk show block featuring encores of Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley at noon; the Newshour at 7 p.m.; and the morning and afternoon stretch with some of your favorite PBS fitness programs at 6 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Up to date schedule information can be found here.

Before stations were broadcasting around the clock they were required to “sign off” before ending the broadcast day. These were often patriotic images put to the music of the Star Spangled Banner. The KLRN/KLRU sign-off is no exception and it will be a trip down memory lane for many of our staff. David will air the sign-off on its original 2” tape, eschewing our fancy digital technology one last time.

In conjunction with the rebroadcast of this series, KLRU’s Michael Emery will be blogging about his own genealogical experiences. Here is part one of his journey.

My dear mother kept several photograph albums that spanned decades of family relations. Always the patient parent, she would sit with me and my siblings in order to explain what the many pictures were about and who was being therein pictured. This was better than her reading us storybooks, because these were not made-up: these were real events and real people, frequently my own relatives. And so it went for me as a boy, my attraction to genealogy began as photos of my family and oral histories.

These things are still important, but genealogists have other tools to lean on today. Technology has provided us ever more contrivances to get our work (and play) done. One of the newest implements is DNA analysis. Following the theme of African American Lives, KLRU has handed me this new gizmo, a DNA kit from AfricanDNA.com. With the help of his pioneering company, Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. et al, I will give it a try in the weeks to come and blog about my own immersion in genetic genealogy.

While my knowledge of science isn’t one of my strong points, I can tell you that computer technology has been a great practical benefit to my own quest. In fact, it is the primary reason why I chose to invest in a personal computer (a Macintosh SE/30) back in the early-1990s. With this I was next able to purchase and install a dedicated genealogy application (Reunion) and begin the never-ending process of digitizing my family history. I’ve entered detailed person sheets about my family. I’ve scanned photographs and documents. I started looking around for other African Americans to share in the passion for genealogy when the Internet began to become popular. I have literally met several cousins online whom I had not known before! The family tree increased by scores and scores.

Trying to provide a public service, I (along with co-founder Saundra Brown) launched the very first Usenet newsgroup dedicated to African-ancestored genealogy discussions in 1995. News:soc.genealogy.african still lives, but it’s a shadow of its former self due to a period of malicious cross-posting that chased serious folks away; the service which initially hosted the newsgroup changed hands, and abruptly left the group unsupported for a number of years; the emergence at the right time of a very worthy successor, Afrigeneas.com; and the steady drumbeat of progress, superseding the former popularity of the Usenet.

Please bear with me in this blog as I attempt an embrace with the latest genetic technology in the effort to capture a view of my distant past.

– At KLRU, Michael Emery directs Texas Monthly Talks, is a camera operator for Austin City Limits and other productions, and produced Juneteenth Jamboree (which airs Monday, Feb. 9, at 9:30 p.m. on KLRU). He is a former bicycle commuter, currently a car commuter, and aspires to be a bicycle commuter again.

The move from analog to digital broadcasting will take place on February 17. Do you know if your television is ready for the transition?

DTV Answers Day will be January 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. throughout Central Texas. Experts from all local television stations will be out in the community answering questions and giving demonstrations about the digital television transition.

KLRU will be at the Nimitz Museum Community Room in Fredericksburg, 340 East Main St. Other Austin television stations will be at the following locations:

Taylor Public Library 801 Vance St.

Lantex Theatre in Llano 113 W Main St.

LCRA Riverside Conference Center in Bastrop  1405 Willow St.

Bee Cave Library in the Hill Country Galleria 4000 Galleria Parkway

Univision Studios Austin 2233 W. North Loop Blvd.

Please tell people you know about this opportunity to make sure their TV is ready for the 2/17/2009 conversion to digital broadcasting. We’ll be doing at least one more test in the future. For more details about the transition call KLRU’s DTV hotline at 232-2471 or go to klru.org/dtv