By Steve Fidel
Deseret News staff writer

Latter-day Saints living in Utah are accustomed to the television broadcasts that carry sessions of general conference each April and October.
But church members who live in parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America where the conference is not available on television will be finding live radio broadcasts of conference sessions on the young but growing Bonneville International LDS Radio Network.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched the network almost five years ago and is now offering 24-hour programming that is distributed through cable systems, via satellite and through subcarrier channels received by specially modified AM/FM radios that are sold through two Bonneville distributors for $95.
Other radio stations, usually by contract with Bonneville, take parts of the LDS Radio Network's programming for use on their own stations.
''Phoenix is where we started to take off first. That is by far our largest subcarrier audience,'' said Andrew McQuinn, the network's manager and programming director. ''Utah used to be one of our weaker markets, but it is picking up.'' KKIC 950 AM in Boise is now broadcasting to an audience the size of the one in Phoenix, McQuinn said.
The bishop of one LDS ward in Phoenix recently told McQuinn he knew of only three families in his congregation that did not have the specially adapted subcarrier radios needed to pick up the network's broadcasts there. The sub-carrier signal is broadcast in Phoenix by KHCT 96.9 FM.
Promotional materials are used to publicize the network and describe the unique transmission paths the network employs. On request, the network will mail a free programming guide that gives a general listing of programs and times. The network plans to post detailed programming information soon on a World Wide Web home page.
Most of the network's growth, McQuinn said, has been word-of-mouth among church members.
It's hard to know just how large the radio audience will be for the weekend conference, but listeners will likely be tuning in from as far away as Central America, McQuinn said.
He knows the broadcasts are reaching beyond the borders of the United States because the network carried parts of a KSL Primary Children's Medical Center telethon and received a donation from a listener in Mexico.
Even in areas where television coverage is fed by closed-circuit satellite to church buildings, McQuinn said he has heard of a growing number of church members who opt to tune into the radio broadcasts so they can listen to conference sessions at home instead of traveling to satellite dish-equipped chapels.
Besides live conference broadcasts, LDS Network programming draws on a collection of conference addresses from Bonneville's archives and incorporates them into its regular programming schedule. A digital cassette tape McQuinn pulled from a tape deck to demonstrate this facet of the network's programming contained an address by President David O. McKay, who led the church from 1951 until 1970.
A storage rack on the wall contains hundreds of addresses on digital tape while a bank of compact disc players several feet away is filled with discs of sacred music, arrangements of LDS hymns and contemporary LDS recordings. Other programming material is played from conventional open-reel tape.
McQuinn's job with the growing network is unique because he is also the network's only full-time staff member. His broadcasting studio is located in the Triad Center with KSL Radio, which is also owned by Bonneville International, the church's broadcast arm. The LDS Radio Network's proximity to KSL and their joint Bonneville ownership allow McQuinn to draw on Bonneville and KSL's engineering and staffing resources.
The four main general conference sessions are distributed live. For the bulk of the network's programming, McQuinn tells a computer which songs to play and where to find them in the compact disc collection. He tells the computer when and which sermons and church education system addresses to air and the computer puts all of the pieces together, complete with advertisements, in an ''almost live'' format.
The automation involved makes the 24-hour format possible with a very small staff, McQuinn said.
Utah listeners with basic cable service from TCI Cablevision of Utah can receive the LDS Radio Network programming by tuning the frequency of a cable-connected FM receiver to 88.9.
FM radio stations in Salt Lake (KISN 97.1), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York City and Rexburg, Idaho, distribute the network's programming on the subcarrier frequency.
The satellite feed is available by tuning a satellite dish to GE SatCOM C1 (137 degrees west), Transponder 6, audio 5.58 Mhz., and on the DISH Network satellite system.