Student radio forms a vital community communications service to students the world over. Student radio in the United Kingdom, for exammple, is extremely popular and several thousand students are involved nationwide. Most American campus universities have a radio station or at least a group of people who attempt to obtain a yearly licence.

There are two types of student radio stations in the UK. There are the RSL (restricted service licence) stations, who broadcast for a month at a time once or twice a year on FM (frequency modulation), obtaining a month's licence which is normally supplied to commercial radio stations to try out a certain area for the viability of another station. These licences are obtained under the assertion that student radio is a valuable community asset.

Then there are the LPAM or FRAM stations (Low Powered Amplitude Modulation or Free Radiating Amplitude Modulation, where amplitude modulation is AM or MW on your radio). These stations have their own transmitters and broadcast all the time on their frequencies in the AM band.

Many LPAM stations apply for RSL as well, varying their output between the two forms of broadcasting.

Student radio can be a valuable springboard into the radio and media industry for students who would not normally have considered it an option, for example if their degrees or courses do not have anything to do with media at all. In this capacity, student radio offers all students involoved the opportunity that all media wannabes the world over would kill for: the chance to demonstrate what they can do. (or the chance do demonstrate that they can actually do what they say they can!)