On the ground floor of the Donohue Building on the Holyoke Community College campus sits college radio station WCCH 103.5 FM in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Blessed with several distinct spaces, the station has a cheerful lobby, a unique standalone on-air booth, and a podcast and live music base of operations down the hall. The aesthetically pleasing studios each have their own personality, making for a very welcoming feeling during my March 2026 visit.

Touring WCCH in March 2026

While WCCH is well organized and tidy, it’s definitely a creative, college radio space. Decorated vinyl records hang on pale green walls in the lobby near a hand-made “radio” sign, a collection of Vinylthon Golden Slipmats (earned for the station’s participation across many years), and a series of framed posters. DJs are known to bring in prized artifacts, including a Nirvana flag contributed by Student Manager Flynn Paul.

Down the hall, a podcast studio is surrounded by bright green and black soundproofing panels arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Just outside that room is WCCH’s “Studio B,” where live music sessions are recorded in the style of “Tiny Desk Concert.” This comparatively warm-toned stage is accented by a bright orange rug (General Manager Pat LaBelle described it as “the Austin Powers shag carpet”) and matching couch. Low black bookcases sit in the background near bright paintings and a “Good Vibes Only” sign.

Studio B Live Sessions

Before I walked in to “Studio B,” a group of WCCH participants had been hanging out and jamming in “guitar karaoke” style. In a jubilant mood, they offered to pose for photos on the set and in the podcasting room. One picked up a guitar as if performing in one of the station’s live sessions. They also pulled up an archive on the WCCH YouTube channel, sharing with me the final products from the multi-camera “Live from Studio B” recordings. Student Manager Paul talked about the process for doing the live music recordings, which utilizes a whole crew handling sound and a three-point camera system.

Funky On-Air Booth aka WCCH Sauna Room

While the live room and podcast studio feel sparkling and new, the on-air booth has the lived-in feel typical of a decades-old station. Unusual for college radio, the studio is a freestanding structure, resembling a large safe or industrial walk-in freezer, sitting within a relatively spartan room. Baby blue on the outside, only the studio door is plastered with band and radio station stickers. A wood grain-style sign reads “Broadcast Studio,” with another sign inscribed with “WCCH Sauna Room” sitting just below it. Two on-air lights are mounted at the top of the booth. LaBelle said, “tragically, our on-air lights just went out. They’ve probably been up there since 1976.”

In the Studio with DJ Daymen T

After pulling open the studio door, we spied DJ Daymen T (aka Daymen Toussaint) in the midst of his show. Sitting in a dark studio, he was singing along to the music, clearly enjoying his show, which included some college radio favorites from decades ago like Violent Femmes and the Cure. He said he’s been listening to a lot of The White Stripes, so was initially going to play music from other two-member bands like the Black Keys and the Royal Bloods. “But then I went off on a tangent with other stuff and I said, I’m not going to limit myself,” he shared, telling me that he ended up expanding that night’s theme to indie rock in general. His music choices vary depending upon his mood. The prior week he played R&B and “soul jazz club” music, ending with material that he referred to as “80s prom night.”

The compact WCCH studio booth contains many of the usual college radio items including two turntables, CD players, and microphones. High on shelf sits a framed “Updated FCC Policies” document containing a list of the words not to say on the radio. Toussaint noted that he had received the decorative frame as a wedding gift and since it had been sitting around unused, he figured he would donate it to the station.

WCCH on the Upswing in its 50th Anniversary Year

On an upswing, WCCH has around 40 shows currently. That’s a dramatic increase from the handful of participants when General Manager LaBelle joined in September 2024. An enthusiastic cheerleader for the station, LaBelle beamed with pride as he pointed to a copy of The Holyoke Sun that featured a front page article about WCCH.

WCCH History Snapshot: From Campus-Only AM in 1976 to FM Debut in 1977

In the midst of its 50th anniversary celebrations, the student-run station was established in 1976 as a campus-only carrier current station (WHHC 640 AM) and launched over class D FM in November 1977 (originally at 89.5 FM). In the early days, WCCH purposefully avoided edgier music like punk, heavy metal and acid rock, according to a November 26, 1977 piece in the Transcript-Telegram. At the time, the student station played jazz, classical, and Christian rock music and aired news and talk shows about movies and theater. During the WCCH reunion on April 30, more than 100 alumni returned to campus to share memories and mementos from their time at the station. LaBelle recounted that at the event “the love for college radio and WCCH was palpable!!”

Run as a club, LaBelle estimates that WCCH is comprised of 95% students, with a few alums and non-students “grandfathered” in due to their longevity at the station. In order to add more live shows to the schedule, LaBelle is starting up an alumni program and hopes to expand the programming schedule in the evenings and on the weekends. Currently during the late night hours, WCCH runs automated programming.

Wide-Ranging Shows across the Schedule at the Freeform Station

Just outside the WCCH studio, a large chalkboard displays the weekly programming schedule, which generally runs from 6am to 10pm. In addition to DJ names, show titles and times, the grid is also full of accompanying drawings that illustrate the variety of offerings. Some of the shows include “Noise Man,” “Genre Fluid,” “Cat Loaf,” “Freak Wave,” “The Lost Mix Tape,” and “Elastic Glam Radio.” DJs play a wide range of genres. LaBelle described the station as freeform, telling me that DJs play “everything from death metal to Taylor Swift.”

In commenting on the schedule, LaBelle pointed out various show hosts, noting, “everyone’s so creative and so different.” One example is DJ Wooper, who shares gaming news and plays rock music on the Wednesday afternoon program “Highscores & Hi-Volts.” As we chatted, another DJ, “Radio Royal,” popped by, chiming in about the importance of radio, noting, “There’s just such a huge community of people who like different music, but radio ties everybody in together.”

Public affairs and talk shows are also part of the line-up. Student Manager Paul was producing a show called “Science Saturdays,” as part of a final project in their STEM Scholars program. For the show, the goal was to collect interview with Paul’s “fellow scholars” and “staff members in the biology and other STEM departments” at Holyoke Community College.

Vinyl “Record Keepers” Display to Recognize DJs and Staff

WCCH likes to recognize its participants and one ongoing ritual is for DJs to decorate and inscribe vinyl records (many of which the DJs have brought in) with their names and years on the air. This “Record Keepers” display honors past station managers and DJs who have had at least “two successful semesters on-air.” In addition to the records on the walls, bins and shelves contain mostly older records from the past. Although the studio is outfitted with turntables, LaBelle said that records are usually only played during the annual “Vinylthon” celebration. For the 2026 edition of Vinylthon in April, WCCH played vinyl for 24 hours straight.

In addition to vinyl, WCCH also has a small collection of carts as well as vintage reel to reel tape and cart machines. LaBelle was enthusiast about the archival audio materials, saying, “these are like living history.” As I prepared to leave, LaBelle expressed his passion for WCCH. “I’m just…the luckiest guy in the world. I love, love, love college radio. Love what I do,” he shared, adding, “I often feel emotional here because…it’s bigger than radio.”

Thanks to WCCH + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Flynn Paul, Pat LaBelle and everyone at WCCH for the wonderful tour. This is my 202nd radio station tour report and my 143rd college radio station tour piece. This is the final post from my flurry of March 2026 station visits in western Massachusetts. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in the Radio Survivor archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #202: WCCH-FM at Holyoke Community College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On a chilly early March night, WMHC General Manager Valentina Rubio Lopez greeted me outside the Mount Holyoke College campus in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Bursting with love for radio, Rubio Lopez explained that an important part of their college selection criteria was that the school have a functioning radio station. The specific inspiration came from radio show host protagonists on the “Welcome to Night Vale” podcast, which they listened to in middle school. These fictional characters opened their world to the concept of doing radio. As a result, Rubio Lopez has been involved with the Mount Holyoke College station since freshman year.

Touring WMHC in 2026: Sticker-Covered Door Preserved!

In the hour before the Mount Holyoke senior’s weekly show, Rubio Lopez led me on a lively tour of the WMHC studio and offices. Located on the upper level of Blanchard Hall, the station is part of a larger Community Center complex at Mount Holyoke College, a historically women’s college in western Massachusetts. The student newspaper, student government and student involvement offices are on the same floor and a pub, meeting rooms, and gaming tables are within the building.

One of the first things we spotted was a sticker-covered door mounted on the wall near the entrance to WMHC. Plastered with band stickers (Hot Snakes, Primus, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Willie Nelson, The Thermals, Pixies and more) and radio station decals (I spied some for WMHC, WOZQ, WMUA, and WFUV), the door used to be the main entry point to WMHC. Rubio Lopez told me that upon returning to campus last fall, the station leaders discovered that the long-time door had been removed as part of an accessibility upgrade. Upset to see it gone, WMHCers managed to track it down and had it installed as decoration. Happy to see it back, Rubio Lopez pointed out that it’s “your first introduction to WMHC.”

Preserving the Rich History of Radio at Mount Holyoke College

Saving that cherished sticker-filled door is in keeping with WMHC’s respect for the station’s lengthy history. Over the years WMHC has worked to move older materials to the university archives, which contains a large collection of student radio-related items dating as far back as the late 1930s. Much of that collection has been digitized as part of my work with the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications and can be viewed in the WMHC Collection on the Internet Archive. The station has a close relationship with The Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, which I visited on the day after my trip to WMHC. While there, I saw a mini zine that was created to provide a snapshot of WMHC history. Additionally, among racks of postcards printed from vintage photos in the Mount Holyoke collection was one of DJs in the WMHC studio.

This appreciation for station history is also woven into the schedule of activities for WMHC’s annual Radio Week this year. The celebration kicked off with “Explore the WMHC Archives,” an open house at the Mount Holyoke College Archives on April 27. During Radio Week, WMHC typically holds daily events including open mics, live DJing (“DJ on the Green”), karaoke, and more. The culmination of the week is often a big concert. This year’s Radio Week concludes with APAU (Association of Pan-African Unity) + WMHC: Boiler Room, a dance party featuring a roster of DJs.

Artifacts from the past can be found throughout the WMHC space. During my visit, I saw vintage program guides, “dead tech,” shelves of vinyl records and CDs, and an event “hall of fame.” The former main studio room now serves as a storage room and museum for many of these items. A wall is covered with flyers and posters and Rubio Lopez explained that it provides “documentation” of concerts and artists that they’ve brought to campus. WMHC has presented shows featuring singer-songwriter Indigo DeSouza, indie folk band The Barr Brothers, indie rock band The Greening Committee, and local (Amherst-based) glam punk band Sapien Joyride, among others.

Physical Music at WMHC

Although WMHC has a lot of vinyl records and several turntables, that music is “going unused unfortunately” due in part to broken equipment and tight budgets, according to Rubio Lopez. Explaining that the station’s vinyl is “almost decorative at this point,” they said they wished they could get a new turntable, especially since it’s nostalgic for them to view photos of former DJs holding the very records housed in the station.

It’s an interesting paradox since physical media is increasingly cherished by college students at Mount Holyoke. According to Rubio Lopez, “The student body has a strong distaste for streaming these days,” leading to the use of physical media, with CDs “the most popular way of doing that.” In light of that, WMHC is “prioritizing just having CDs because most people want CDs and have CDs and know how to use CDs.” A WMHC trivia event this spring was to include a CD player and portable CD player as prizes.

In addition to WMHC’s appreciation for records and CDs, the station takes pride in the artistry behind its promotional items. Rubio Lopez pointed out station-produced postcards, T-shirts (which are produced with a different design each year), stickers, flyers, posters and even black sweatpants with WMHC written in “metal font” on the back. Inspired by pre-pandemic paper program guides, WMHC was hoping to produce a new edition this semester that includes show descriptions as a replacement for the spartan calendar-style digital schedules that have been the norm in recent years.

Radio at Mount Holyoke Begins with 1947 Studio, then WMHC’s Campus-Only Debut in 1951

Now broadcasting online and over 91.5 FM, WMHC’s history stretches back to the 1940s. After a radio studio was built in 1947 for academic use by radio speech and broadcasting courses, students became interested in establishing a radio station. In a November 1950 letter to Smith College, student Carolyn Bell asks for advice about starting up a radio station, adding that, “With students here at Mount Holyoke so enthusiastic about having a college station, we are hoping to overcome present difficulties. Many thanks for your help and interest.” A year later, in November 1951, students launched WMHC as a campus-only AM carrier current station at “around 820 on the radio dial,” with a control room in Mary E. Woolley Hall. After five years of campus-only broadcasts, WMHC obtained an FCC license and began transmitting as a 10 watt FM station in April 1957.

WMHC Launches over FM in 1957

Nods to WMHC’s 75 year history are dotted on the walls throughout the station. An old Alumnae Memory Book includes the phrase “50 Years of Liberated Radio,” while a banner in the studio remains posted after the station’s 62nd birthday over a decade ago. A flyer for an unspecified WMHC Birthday touts a mid-life crisis theme, encouraging attendees to “dress like you’re going through hot flashes thinking about buying a new sports car.” Another flyer outlines some details from WMHC’s history, making the claim that “we are the oldest radio station in the country that has been continually operated by women.”

Although WMHC’s FM launch in 1957 places it as perhaps the oldest continuously operating FM station at a historically women’s college, several colleges had campus-only stations that began even earlier. If we use carrier current launch dates as the determining factor for “oldest,” then Wellesley College (WBS launched in 1942) and Smith College (WCSR launched in 1948) have been around longer when considering their campus-only beginnings in the 1940s, even though their FM stations debuted after Mount Holyoke’s.

In 2026, WMHC Listeners Tune in over 91.5 FM and via Mixlr

In 2026, most of the WMHC audience is assumed to be listening online over its Mixlr stream, although radios throughout the studio are tuned to 91.5 FM as a way to monitor the terrestrial broadcast. Rubio Lopez said that signal isn’t as strong as it used to be and that it doesn’t extend much beyond the campus, noting, “but it’s still FM!” Listeners can chat live with DJs over Mixlr, which is a feature enjoyed by the mostly student (and one staff member) DJs. Besides the radio broadcasts, WMHC also regularly spins music at campus events using its mobile DJ gear. Recently they’ve been asked to DJ at athletic events, including tail gate parties.

High Participation at WMHC, with Packed Schedule

Mount Holyoke College’s undergraduate population is just over 2,100 students, so it’s quite amazing that WMHC’s membership is at about 130, including the student board and DJs. Live programming usually airs from 8am to 2am and is made up of mostly one-hour shows. While Rubio Lopez speculates that indie rock is the most popular genre on WMHC, the station plays a mix that also includes pop, electronic, jazz, world, folk, and more. “Funked up! Mixes,” “Monosyllabic Noise,” “Zombie Girl Radio,” “Misunderstood Juveniles Navigating Girlhood,” “iPod Idolatry,” BIPOC’O Clock,” “Beats, Bops & Bangers,” and “ur mom” are just a few of 100 or so show names, hinting at the themes and perspectives of various DJs. Evey Sunday night, “Live at 5,” airs live music performances from the station.

On the night of my visit, a DJ was doing a live show, playing mostly music from the 1980s. Between selections by the Pet Shop Boys, New Order and Wham!, the DJ chatted with friends sitting in the studio about the music, before imploring listeners to drive safely on the snowy roads. The dim studio was only slightly illuminated by lights from the board and from hanging decorative string lights. From large windows one can look out over the campus. Another window has a view of the record library/dead tech storage room. Rubio Lopez pointed out a ghostly face in that window, telling me that the cardboard cut-out is a photo of a former WMHC general manager who “watches over everybody.”

Thanks to WMHC + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Valentina Rubio Lopez for the fun evening tour of WMHC. This is my 201st radio station tour report and my 142nd college radio station tour. This concludes my series of tours of stations in the Five College Consortium. Since they have overlapping histories, be sure to take a look at those pieces about WMUA (UMass Amherst), WAMH (Amherst College), Yurt Radio (Hampshire College), and WOZQ (Smith College). You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in the Radio Survivor archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #201: WMHC-FM at Mount Holyoke College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In a 1947 letter to WPRU at Princeton University, Smith College student Betty Specht asks for advice about the feasibility of setting up a college radio station, writing that there is a feeling that they are, “very much out of the fashion by lacking this modern convenience.” Ensuing correspondence with other radio stations provides further guidance. Mary P. O’Donnell, the Program Director at Radcliffe College station WRAD, writes with a grim update from the struggling station that was on the brink of going broke, warning the women at Smith to “not think about starting a station unless you are ready and willing to lay out your own money.” She concludes on a more upbeat note, saying, “in spite of all, college radio is goodly fun — if you have a strong heart.”

Smith College Radio Dates Back to the 1940s with WCSR

Undeterred, students at Smith formed a Radio Club in 1947 and joined the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). They attended IBS conferences, building connections with nearby stations. This resulted in the first Smith Radio broadcast in 1948 over WMS at Williams College. As the 1947-1948 school year drew to a close, the Smith Radio Club had 96 members and was making plans for its AM carrier current debut in fall 1948. After test broadcasts that fall, the official launch of WCSR took place in January 1949. Transmitting out of a Smith-owned garage, the station could be heard over 600 AM on campus radios.

Within a month of its initial broadcast, WCSR convened the first meeting of The Connecticut Valley Network, to discuss the sharing of programming among stations at Smith, University of Connecticut, Wesleyan and Trinity. Meanwhile, talks were also underway with the even more local stations at UMass Amherst and Mount Holyoke and Amherst Colleges. This resulted in the launch of the Pioneer Broadcasting System in 1950, which led to a multi-year relationship in which stations shared programming and worked together to attract advertisers.

WOZQ-FM Launches in 1982

Nearly eighty years later, much is different and much is the same for Smith College Radio. The current station, WOZQ (pronounced woahzeeQ by the Smith community), broadcasts at 91.9 FM in Northampton, Massachusetts and online via Mixlr. Launching over FM in 1982, WOZQ-FM is the descendant of WCSR (which ceased operations in 1956) and WRSC, a carrier current station that operated at Smith College starting in the mid-1970s.

Touring WOZQ in 2026

On a chilly day in early March 2026, the Smith College campus was blanketed with a fresh layer of newly-fallen snow. Members of the WOZQ board had recently returned from the IBS conference in New York City and were energized by the opportunity to connect with college radio participants, including representatives from another station at a historically women’s college: Simmons University Radio. WOZQ Tech Director Bella Bandura said that someone from the Simmons station sought them out at the conference to share compliments about WOZQ’s unique branding. “She told us that she’s been inspired by our collaging vibe,” Bandura relayed. At the conference, WOZQers handed out examples of their promotional pieces, including pink matchbooks emblazoned with the station’s black bat logo. The Simmons station is taking cues from the WOZQ aesthetic, adopting ideas from the station’s Instagram page and publicity materials for its own social media posts.

This recent experience at IBS is a beautiful example of the friendly relationships that generations of Smith Radio students have forged with other college radio stations. From the earliest days of radio on campus, students were engaging with stations near and far in order to learn, grow, and expand their reach. And this is still the case in 2026, as WOZQ continues to work with stations in the Five College Consortium (Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College, Amherst College and UMass Amherst) on shared events. Last fall, WOZQ, Amherst College’s WAMH (see my tour) and UMass Amherst’s WMUA (see my tour) collaborated on “BODIES,” an event featuring DJs from each school doing “party sets” of music.

Embracing the DIY Ethos at WOZQ

Past and present collide at WOZQ in countless ways. Old posters, flyers, and photos hang on the station’s walls and vintage equipment, ephemera and recordings are tucked away in hidden locations. The adorably retro WOZQ website resides on neocities. With a pink background and hand-drawn imagery (including the spring program schedule) the site feels like it was plucked from the DIY blog days of the late 1990s/early 2000s. A September 2025 announcement atop the site reads, “Welcome to our blog/website/thing! Trying something new because we wanna get back to WOZQ’s DIY roots and decrease our reliance on big tech and streaming…Imagine we are back in the myspace/tumblr/livejournal days, which none of us are even old enough to remember lol..”

The Allure of Radio

The WOZQ crew’s appreciation for human-curated playlists and human-created art was apparent during my visit. Tech Director Chris Park said, “Especially now with the rise of AI, people don’t want to listen to artificially or…algorithmically-curated things,” noting, “Algorithms have become so oversaturated in our lives and it feels emotionally inauthentic, at least for me, to listen to…a Spotify AI DJ.” While doing an early morning show she was amazed to learn about a sleep-deprived listener who regularly tuned in on the terrestrial dial. “I thought that was really lovely. And I like the thought that I could be …keep[ing] somebody company late at night when there’s no other voice around. And it’s …a real human, authentic voice in real time talking to you and not a recording or an algorithmically generated thing.”

Radios in the Houses at Smith College

A few years back the WOZQ board made an effort to supply radios to all the campus houses so that students could hear the station. Bandura said that the cute little pink radios still exist in bathrooms and living rooms of most houses. Whenever she encounters a radio in the houses, she makes sure to tune it to WOZQ. Part of what she enjoys is hearing Smith students on the air talking about the music. “…it just sounds very authentic and homemade. And it doesn’t feel like I’m listening to iHeart radio,” she said. Park expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “I want to tune into the radio and I want to hear people talking about why they chose their songs and why they played these songs in a particular order.” 

Variety of Shows and Curated New Music Mix

Tuning in to WOZQ, one definitely hears live DJs, often speaking in very personal terms about their music choices. On a Monday night in April, a psychedelic rock-inspired mix on the show “Who Cooks for You?” included the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Talking Heads, Guided by Voices, Pavement and FKA Twigs. The show hosts (DJ BirdDog and DJ Turducken) also played music that touched on themes appropriate to the day (4/20), with songs like “Caught High” (Kitty Craft), “Stoned at the Nail Salon” (Lorde) and “Phish Pepsi” (Wednesday).

Specialty Shows with International Music Emphasis

During the rare times (and late night hours) when there isn’t a live show on WOZQ, a curated mix of new music plays. DJs doing “general” music shows are also required to play at least four new releases an hour. Music Director Rinal Dahhan has worked to diversify the new releases list in a number of ways. “I was…very frustrated by the new releases when I was a DJ my first couple of semesters. So I’ve added a lot more…women of color, women in general,” Dahhan explained, noting, “I love indie rock, but I also want to make sure people are…exposing themselves to…other different really, really cool stuff.” Dahhan hosts an Arabic alternative music show and enjoys providing listeners with details about artists’ backstories as well as information about the non-English lyrical content, explaining, “obviously a lot of listeners don’t understand Arabic and that’s okay.” This emphasis on breadth of genres is echoed by other current board members, several of whom do specialty music shows.

Bandura, a junior, has been hosting a Brazilian music show ever since her first semester at WOZQ. Inspired by her parents, who met at a record store in Brazil, she said, “I have to bring more Brazilian music into my life, into Smith students’ lives.” The program has even caught the attention of the school’s Portugese department and Bandura says that the show is on the syllabus for many of the classes. “They require students to go to some kind of event, either a Portuguese lunch table or listen to my show and write down some songs,” she explained. 

High Participation at WOZQ and Packed Schedule

A large organization at Smith College, WOZQ received around 130 show applications this semester. Assistant Station Manager Maya Smith mentioned that quite a few seniors submitted applications. She said that as graduation drew closer, many didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to be involved. The schedule is packed from around 6am to 2am with mostly one-hour shows due to the popularity of the station. For a school of just over 2500 undergraduates, the level of participation is impressive.

WOZQ is run by a student board of around fifteen and there are about 150 DJs. Bandura said that applications have been high for the past few years, so much so that she was shut out of getting a show during her first semester on campus when there were perhaps 200 applicants. There is a general feeling that interest in the station is growing. The managers noted that while going through older materials, they noticed that there were years when the station only had 40 to 50 DJs. Reflecting on why WOZQ is attracting more attention today, Station Manager Alex Rtishchev speculated that this is in part due to promotional activities and efforts to make events and the station more welcoming. “I think college radio can feel a bit [like it’s] only for kids who like indie music or only like certain music,” Rtishchev said. “And I feel like we try to make it accessible…Our events, our studio is just a fun place to be for anyone, no matter what kind of music you like.” 

Main Studio + The Clubhouse

Located on the bottom floor of the Julia Child Campus Center, WOZQ’s compact space includes an office area, studio, closet, and a physical music library containing CDs and vinyl records. WOZQ also has access to the old station space, known as “the clubhouse.” Housed on the upper floors of a nearby building, the former digs appear frozen in time. One can imagine DJs from the 1980s and 1990s sitting in the hot pink-walled studio, playing the vinyl records and CDs that are stashed in U.S.P.S. mail tubs. Vintage mixing consoles, a reel-to-reel player, and old carts are reminders of the days before digital music hit the scene. While glancing through files and paperwork, Smith, Bandura and Dahhan chuckled about show names and flyers that they ran across, but also repeatedly mentioned promotional ideas that were being sparked by the materials.

Up another flight of stairs, in the clubhouse attic, sits the station’s transmitter room. Rarely visited by current WOZQers, clues in the space indicate that in the past it was also used as a record library and office. With pink and purple walls, the main room is largely empty except for the transmitter, a table and a few chairs. Past that room is a nook containing built-in shelves dotted with small strips of tape with faded, hand-written genres labels, indicating the old sections for Latin, Irish/Celtic, Punk/Hardcore/Loud Rock, Classic Rock, and 80’s records. There’s talk of reactivating these former WOZQ spaces, which were largely vacated after the station moved to the new campus center.

WOZQ Events: Prom, Concerts, Mixtape CDs and Botanic Boogie

In addition to its on-air activities, WOZQ hosts a variety of events. So far in 2026, there’s been a “very creepy Valentine’s Day concert,” a large spring concert featuring bands Computerwife and Blue Mena, and “The Botanic Boogie,” in which WOZQ curated playlists for various greenhouses at the Smith Botanic Garden. The station also crafted mixtape CD-grams, inviting students to buy the 1-hour music mixes as Valentine’s Day gifts. Last fall, the station’s big concert featured bands Wishy and Starcleaner Reunion playing a prom-themed show, complete with photo booth, prom court, and attendees in dressy attire.

Throughout this academic year, some WOZQ-hosted concerts have included bands from Smith College (The Novabrides and Total Reve played at the Back to School Garden Concert in September) in addition to artists from out-of-town. Rtishchev said that when planning concerts, WOZQ makes an effort to book artists who are female identifying or transgender, explaining that the station tries to showcase these artists “because we are a school of gender minorities and we want the music that we [showcase] to not only represent us, but be empowering to us.”

On-Air Takeover Show Features Women of Color

Another way that female artists have been highlighted at WOZQ is through a partnership with the Smith College journal Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. On February 12, the journal did a “takeover” of the WOZQ airwaves, with station DJs playing music by women of color for an entire day. Dahhan is an intern at Meridians and was thrilled by the collaboration. “I listened to WOZQ that whole day and it was such a great day of radio because…every show was so different, but so awesome.” Inspired by the takeover, Dahhan hopes that WOZQ will make it a regular on-air event.

Closing out the Visit in the Studio

As I wrapped up my visit, WOZQ PR/Communications Director Gaby Adams arrived in the studio to cover for a friend’s show. After beginning her show with “Girl Feels Good” by FKA Twigs, she took time to chat a bit with me between mic breaks. The ethereal and shoegazy hoodie x James K track “Scorpio” provided the perfect soundtrack as we talked about music and WOZQ. A senior, Adams told me that “it’s kind of bittersweet” to be getting closer to graduation. A fan of trip hop, ambient and electronic music in general, she’s had a show every semester since her arrival at Smith. In addition to enjoying all the “fun events” put on by WOZQ, she appreciates being in a community of music fans, telling me, “I love how passionate everyone is about music.”

Thanks to WOZQ + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to everyone at WOZQ for sharing your station with me. It was such a treat seeing all of the station spaces and learning more about the history of radio at Smith College. This is my 200th radio station tour report and my 141st college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in the Radio Survivor archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #200: WOZQ-FM at Smith College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“This semester is our last semester in our current radio station, so we would love the opportunity to show off our wacky and wonderful space,” emailed WAMH-FM station manager Finley Liu in response to my request for a tour. With the clock ticking before the planned move, I was especially eager to visit the longtime student-run station at Amherst College in western Massachusetts.

Scanning the Walls of WAMH: Murals, Graffiti and Manatees

And indeed my trip to WAMH (pronounced “wham” conversationally among station members) did not disappoint. Its home on the 2nd floor of the Keefe Campus Center is full of personality. One wall of its entryway is decorated with a vibrantly painted mural featuring a bear, transmitter tower, vinyl records, and a manatee. A few years ago WAMH “adopted” two manatees, Howie and Nick, so the animal has become an unofficial mascot, even though there’s no obvious connection to Amherst College or the station (the school’s official mascot is the mammoth). Adjacent to the mural, a narrow hallway contains shelves of CDs as well as other miscellaneous items, including boxes of WAMH materials, file cabinets, and audio equipment.

From there, a door leads to the main station space, whose white walls are covered with colorful drawings, notes, and autographs from DJs and celebrities. A cluster of grey couches provide a seating area with views of the two adjacent studios. Signs of the past are everywhere, from a 20th century audio console, to a weathered Leonard Cohen LP, to a 1993 poster for a Swirlies show, to an even older poster for a Ramones concert presented by WAMH. A Leo Blais-crafted WAMH sign (it’s always a thrill to see one of these college radio staples) sits perched over audio equipment in the studio. Hidden away in an old production studio, now used for storage, are wooden cubbies, with one cube labeled “current CMJ New Music Report,” a reminder of the days when that radio industry publication was read cover to cover by stations.

Signs of the Early Days at WAMH

But perhaps the oldest item is a handwritten letter from 1948 detailing a front page story in the Amherst Student about the launch of the radio station. The letter describes “two studios, a control room, an engineer’s shop, an office and a meeting room” in the Walker Hall basement, with wires connecting the station (then called WAMF) to “various dormitories.” Having visiting the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections that morning, I had a bit of a preview of the rich history of WAMF-WAMH.

College Radio at Amherst: 1948 Beginnings as Campus-Only Carrier Current Station WAMF

WAMF launched as a campus-only AM carrier current station in 1948. By 1950 it was broadcasting eight hours a day, had a staff of 60 student participants and had begun collaborating with nearby campus radio stations. This work was formalized in March 1950, when the Pioneer Broadcasting System (PBS) had its official launch. The network was initially comprised of student stations at Smith College (WCSR), UMass Amherst (WMUA) and Amherst College (WAMF). The stations connected with each other using phone lines, sharing programming and thereby expanding each of their broadcast days. An interesting aspect of this partnership was that it was between stations at three distinct institutions: a private women’s college (Smith), a private men’s college (Amherst is now co-ed, but was all-male at the time), and a public university (UMass Amherst). Upon its launch, it claimed to be “the first direct line intercollegiate broadcasting network in the country.”

WAMF Launches FM in 1955; Call Letters Change to WAMH in 1971

By the mid 1950s, WAMF was airing news, “music to study by,” as well as Amherst College football, basketball, and baseball games. The station hosted a regional college radio conference in 1954 and was accepting national advertising. After encountering issues with its AM carrier current, a decision was made to switch to FM. By December 1955, WAMF was broadcasting with a non-commercial educational FM license at 10 watts. The January 1956 Amherst Alumni News reported that after installing an FM transmitter, the station could be heard within a 15-mile radius. However, AM transmissions were still key for campus listeners. Therefore, “undergraduates working on the station built 20 FM-AM converter units which have been placed in dormitories and fraternity houses to enable undergraduates to hear programs on conventional AM radios,” according to the outlet. Those broadcasts could be heard at 640 AM. In 1971, WAMF changed its call letters to WAMH and received authorization to increase its power, although that expansion to 150 watts in stereo didn’t happen until 1976. At the time, WAMH moved to 89.3 FM, where it remains today.

Archival Projects in Anticipation of Station Move

With the station move to a new student center imminent, members of WAMH are reflecting back on the station’s history (a few joined me for the visit to the college archives) and are working to preserve the materials in their current space. The station invested in a scanner in order to digitize various paper items. Documenting all the scribbles on the walls is a bit more challenging, but is equally important since it’s become a tradition to leave one’s mark on the station. “As soon as you become a DJ, you can write on the wall,” Liu explained, adding that even though the length of the notes varies, “it’s cool to watch how things have kind of grown and new things keep getting added.”

Liu told me that in an attempt to capture the varied artwork, she made a sweatshirt featuring items that she had traced from the wall. “I love the stuff here. It’s really cool reading…conversations people have had that have taken place…across the wall,” she said. Already feeling nostalgic about her time in the current WAMH space, she told me, “I’m going to miss this place a lot.” A junior, she has another full year at WAMH, although next semester the station will look entirely different.

Station Manager’s WAMH Backstory

A radio fan since she was a kid, Liu shared fond memories of listening to 1990s music in the car with her mom and told me “I knew I really wanted to do college radio.” It wasn’t a surprise that she joined up with WAMH as soon as she arrived on campus. In fact, she and her co-station manager Lila Schlissel met online just after they were both admitted early to Amherst. They discovered their shared love for music and radio and talked about doing a show together.

Liu said that she first saw the station one night during orientation week. She reminisced, telling me, “Lila asked me if I wanted to go check out the station with her.” After they peeked through the windows, the station manager invited them in and even showed them how to use the soundboard. “And I just remember it was such a cool feeling to be able to touch the soundboard and hear the music coming through,” she described. Soon after, Liu and Schlissel began doing a show together and then in sophomore year they joined the station’s executive board (e-Board), where they have been co-station managers since Spring 2025. Liu enthused, “I love doing radio.”

Membership Growing at WAMH

A student-run station, WAMH currently has around eight members on its e-board and Liu estimates that there are approximately 80 DJs, adding that the number might be even higher because of an uptick in participation this semester. Telling me that it’s atypical to see so many new members in the spring, she said that is was exciting to have a range of students joining, including freshmen and seniors. She speculated that part of the reason that more seniors are being drawn to WAMH is because of a new graduation tassel that she introduced last year as a perk for station members. “People love collecting little tassels to wear,” Liu explained.

WAMH shows run from around 4pm to 2am over 89.3 FM in the Amherst, Massachusetts area and stream online on Mixlr. When student programming is not airing, a feed of classical music from New England Public Media (NEPM) plays over 89.3 FM. This partnership originally began in 2015 as a collaboration with New England Public Radio (NEPR), when participation in WAMH was quite a bit lower. It was seen as a way to help fill airtime and ensure the station’s survival at the time.

Live in the Studio: Vinyl, Nostalgia and Chatty DJs

During my Thursday evening visit in early March, the studio was occupied with three live DJs playing pop and hip hop music (and vinyl!) on the show “Hall Pass.” One spoke nostalgically on-air about music they remember from their youth, including the band One Direction and songs that their babysitter used to play in the car. They closed out their show with a request for “Bad and Boujee” by hip-hop group Migos.

Soon after, DJ Ceci Malone arrived to host “Einstein’s Dreams,” and played songs with lyrics about the end of the world. The set included a range of genres, including the 1960s pop classic “The End of the World.” Liu said that there’s a lot of freedom on-air, telling me, “our DJs are…able to do what they want to do.” She told me that the random mix of shows covers a variety of topics. One thing that stands out to her is that many DJs are quite talkative. She explained, “I love hearing…co-hosted shows where you’ll…hear friends talking about different topics and…get a little glimpse into their life.” With that in mind, while tuning in this week, I heard a team of DJs chatting about puzzles, doing a quick restaurant review, and working out answers to the New York Times’ games Wordle and Connections while taking a mic break between playing songs from the Beatles and ZZ Top.

Liu also does two shows on WAMH. She co-hosts the film-focused program “B-Roll and B-sides” with her co-station manager, telling me that they talk about movies and play music. On a recent program they brought on Schlissel’s visiting brother and discussed their love for movie theaters. On her other show, “The Minor Third,” she plays hip-hop and R&B music and talks about sports and other topics with her co-host, who is also her partner.

DIY Aesthetic at WAMH: From PSAs to Posters

A quirky aspect of WAMH is its use of handwritten public service announcements (PSAs). Written on colorful index cards, the PSAs include expected topics like flu prevention tips from the CDC, but also include obtuse messages unrelated to a particular agency or non-profit. One example, the purple-inked “Not that Deep,” says, “it might not seem like it in the moment, but it will pass. take a deep breath. control what you can control. in the end, will it really matter tomorrow? next year? in a decade? it’s not that deep bro. let it go.” Stacks of these DIY PSAs sit in plastic sleeves in the WAMH studio, waiting to be read on the air.

Liu was excited to show me some beautiful schedule posters for WAMH (including a few that she made), which have a different design every semester. One has a radio dial theme, another (“WAMH Flakes”) resembles the nutrition facts section on a cereal box, and the Fall 2024 schedule depicts the daily lineup in squares that look artwork within a CD case. In the archives I saw a large collection of similar posters from the past, so it was wonderful to see the tradition being maintained.

Popular DJ Events and Shows Hosted by WAMH

Besides the radio programming, WAMH also produces live music and DJ events. On the weekend following my visit, WAMH was hosting its third in a series of DJ events that started in 2025. Three DJs from the “Five College Consortium” (comprised of Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College and University of Massachusetts Amherst) were scheduled to play sets at Marsh House, an arts-themed community at Amherst College. Liu noted that the DJ events have been “extremely popular,” and that “DJ sets…in more of…a party format” with “cool music,” seem to be more of a draw than other types of live music events. In light of that, Liu said that WAMH hopes to continue doing more live DJ events in addition to shows and the station’s annual spring concert.

Throughout my visit, Liu radiated enthusiasm for radio and WAMH. Optimistic about the state of the station and radio in general, she is especially pleased with the increase in participation at WAMH this semester. “It’s a good sign that people are still interested in doing student radio and still wanting to engage with it,” she said.

Thanks to WAMH + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Finley Liu for the tour of WAMH and to everyone in the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections for a fun visit and glimpse of the amazing WAMF-WAMH collections. This is my 199th radio station tour report and my 140th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in the Radio Survivor archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #199: WAMH-FM at Amherst College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

During lunchtime on a Thursday in early March, University of Massachusetts Amherst’s college radio station WMUA was buzzing with activity. Tables in the lobby were full of students working on laptops, eating and socializing, while the station’s two main studios (one for the 91.1 FM signal and another for streaming station WMUAx) were occupied by DJs doing live programs.

Touring WMUA in 2026

Located in the Student Union building, the station is highly visible, especially with its FM studio’s wall of windows facing a high traffic area where people can be seen walking and congregating. WMUA General Manager Lyvia Migliaccio greeted me and took me on a quick tour of the station. Blessed with an amazing amount of space, WMUA’s large lobby opens into the main control room (MCR) and production room (for DJ training and live broadcasts on the second stream). Off a hallway are the advisor’s office, engineering office, news and sports room, and a podcasting/editing studio.

Appreciation for Physical Media and Human Music Recommendations

Physical media is dispersed throughout the station and can be seen in pretty much every room and studio as well as in the lobby and hallways. Just inside the station entrance is a shelving unit labeled “Staff Picks,” featuring some of the favorite CDs of WMUA participants. The selections run the gamut and include Ella Fitzgerald, 1990s classics from the Cardigans and Cocteau Twins, and newer releases from Brandi Carlile, Beyonce and Charli XCX. An open question, “What are you listening to?,” is written on a wall nearby, with post-it notes underneath the sign providing clues to the music taste of WMUA participants. Both displays are indications of the vibrant station community and its enjoyment of physical music.

Packed WMUA Schedule Includes Two Streams and an Increasing Number of Students

On the other side of the station lobby a large wall is covered with a grid of the WMUA schedule. Hand-drawn cards serve as promotion for various shows on the calendar, with hosts creating the design for their time slot’s card. With over 100 shows this semester, the schedule is packed. Having both an FM stream and a second internet-only stream helps with getting all interested folks on the radio, especially since there’s a large sports department and athletic events can lead to the preemption of programs.

Approaching the end of her senior year, Migliaccio told me that WMUA has grown tremendously since her first year on campus. In addition to increasing participation, she thinks the station is “a lot more DIY” than in the past and is more connected with the school and the community. As we chatted about that, another student, sophomore Seamus Kelley, chimed in with an observation about how welcoming the station is, saying that he regularly comes by to study or hang out, saying, “And even though I don’t have a show, I feel really like a part of a broader community of music heads.”

Vibrant and Welcoming Culture at WMUA

In speaking to that sense of community, Migliaccio confirmed that “people just pop in and hang out,” adding that WMUA does a variety of things beyond radio, which bring in new folks. In particular, shows and concerts on and off campus help to get the station’s name out there. WMUA also regularly hosts a “Battle of the Bands,” which is open to students from their fellow nearby schools in the “Five College Consortium,” including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. The most recent battle just took place in late March. Migliaccio reminisced about producing that event several years ago and how it turned into a costumed event at the last minute since the timing coincided with Halloween weekend.

Mix Tape Nights at WMUA

A newer event, Mix Tape Night, happens pretty frequently. One was coming up the night of my visit, in fact. During Mix Tape Night, people are invited to come to WMUA and burn a mix CD for themselves or as a gift to a friend. As part of the fun, they are also encouraged to design their own cover for the CD. Additionally, station members get credit for participation if they make a mix and leave it for others to enjoy. According to Migliaccio, “the Mix Tape Night has brought in a lot of people who I think otherwise would not been involved” with WMUA.

DIY Vibe at WMUA

The hands-on, DIY craft aesthetic not only infuses Mix Tape Night, but can also can be seen on the walls of the station. Looking around WMUA some of these creations include a fabric stitched and painted WMUA banner, an artist’s sketch of the studio, show flyers drawn with colorful markers, and even a scrapbooky collage-style poster promoting a Friday radio show (“Public Disservice”) that incorporates doilies and magazine cut-outs. As I marveled at the work, Migliaccio agreed, saying, “We try to be as crafty as we can,” noting that there is interest in moving away from a reliance on technology to create flyers. “As much as it’s nice that certain things like Canva are super accessible, I think people generally love… [that] they’ve made it with their own hands,” she explained.

Another promotional item regularly created by WMUA is its annual zine, which is generally released in the spring. For Migliaccio, it’s one example of what makes college radio special. She explained that she relishes the opportunity to “show that we’re still using the CDs…still using the vinyl…still making the zines” and “still…designing our posters.” She counts herself among the DJs playing physical music and said that she’s seen an increase over her four years at WMUA. “I see people all the time…bringing in CDs and being super excited about what we have here” and “uncovering something and being super proud to show everyone what they found in our collection,” she noted.

Physical Music is Cherished and Used at WMUA

WMUA’s production director Owen Ray is also a fan of physical music and described doing a show using CDs and vinyl as an addictive and more personal experience when compared with playing music off a computer. He explained that, “when you’re switching between CDs and vinyl on air, you have the tactile feedback” from “hitting the buttons to play and stop” and “transitioning between faders.” As a result, “the actual auditory experience for the listener is much more specific to you” compared with a show in which one is “taking a break every three songs and hitting pause.” 

Ray also made sure to point out a unique characteristic of WMUA’s international music library. Arranged by part of the world and countries, the CD library was meticulously organized years ago by someone at the station. As we scanned the shelves, labels indicated music from Africa, Western Europe, The Middle East, The Americas, etc, with even more narrow categories for Madagascar, Bulgarian music, Tex Mex, reggae, etc. He said that he appreciates that this style of organization emphasizes “the actual diversity across countries, regions and artists,” adding that it’s “a really special part of what we have here because I like digging into this stuff too for my show.”

Mix of Shows Includes Variety of Genres, News & Sports

Not surprisingly considering its large music library, the studios at WMUA easily allow for the use of physical media. I spotted CD players and turntables throughout the station, with the main control room set up with an enviable five CD players, three turntables, and cassette decks. The range of programs include music shows that play punk, country, R&B, polka, jazz, goth and “dark music,” talk shows, news, sports, and more. Off the air, WMUA also runs a news and music blog, Off the Airwaves, which includes features as well as archives of programming.

A student-managed station, WMUA also welcomes non-student participants, which make up around 10 to 15 percent of the membership. Migliaccio said that many of the community DJs have been with the station for years and are a vital part of the fabric of WMUA. She shared that during DJ training each new broadcaster shadows an existing host, and noted that the long-time community DJs are especially welcoming. Some also have regular student co-hosts, including on the “Poet Talk” program.

WMUA History Snapshot

Since I’m always eager to learn more about a radio station’s backstory, it was exciting to see that WMUA works to preserve historic materials. Advisor Carson Cornelius brought binders full of vintage clippings and correspondence from the 1940s to the 1970s out of his office to share with me and also pointed out the WMUA Charter certificate on the wall, noting that it the station existed earlier than the charter would suggest.

Flipping through the binders, one can trace the trajectory of the station. Newspaper clippings and documents describe WMUA’s debut over AM carrier current in late 1948 (including special Christmas programming that featured an interview with Santa Claus), its collaboration with local stations at Smith College and Amherst College to form a regional college radio network (the Pioneer Broadcasting System), and its move to FM in the early 1950s.

WMUA’s Radio Predecessors at Massachusetts State College

More than a decade before WMUA’s 1948 launch, radio programming was being created on campus. In June 1936, Massachusetts State College (the school’s name at the time) produced material for broadcast on the National Farm and Home Hour sponsored by the Federal Department of Agriculture. Transmission took place from the Farley 4-H club house (The Massachusetts Collegian, 6-6-1936) and garnered fan mail from alumni and other interested listeners from across the country. Other radio efforts during this time included shows broadcast from the studios of local stations.

In its January 5, 1939 issue, The Massachusetts Collegian reported that an $800 grant had been received by the college for the creation of a radio studio. By 1940, radio programming was being produced from the new Tower Room studio in the South College building for broadcast on local stations. Initial shows included “extension service programs” that were transmitted to WHAI, WSPR and WSYB as well as more student-oriented broadcasts that began in February 1940 featuring skits, music, sports reports, music and interviews (Index, 1940).

Student Radio Begins on Campus with WMSC and WUMM

As the fall semester began in 1946, student radio station WMSC was in the works and debuted in April 1947 over 915 K.C. However, those broadcasts were short-lived after reception reports from the 10 watt station were received from nearby towns, indicating that it had exceeded its permitted campus-only range. After exploring “power current” methods, the club was given call letters WUMM (pronounced “woom”) by the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) in December 1947 and launched carrier current transmissions in spring semester 1948 (The Massachusetts Collegian, December 4, 1947). During that term, the station “presented the campus with a program of world, local, and sports news; disc jockey shows, and forums on current events” according to the student yearbook (Index, 1948). The Radio Club had over 100 members at the time.

WMUA Debuts Campus-Only Broadcasts in 1948

The next semester, in fall 1948, radio revamped again at UMass. Participants from University of Massachusetts at Fort Devens’ station WFDM joined forces with WMSC/WUMM, contributing equipment as their campus prepared for its closure in 1949. After the two stations merged, WMUA was formed, launching in December 1948. According to “History of WMUA 1948-1963,” the call letters were selected as a reference to “Massachusetts University in Amherst” (at this point the school was called University of Massachusetts Amherst), but the station was also jokingly called “Western Massachusetts Undertaking Association.” Within a few years, in 1952, WMUA was granted its FM license and continues over FM today.

Thanks to WMUA + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Lyvia Migliaccio for the tour of WMUA and to everyone else at the station for being so helpful and welcoming. This is my 198th radio station tour report and my 139th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #198: WMUA-FM at University of Massachusetts Amherst appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“We desperately need this station! With every other campus on the air, it is a crying shame…After all, with a name like WNEC, what would seem more natural!” (The Westerner, 11/5/1969)

In 1969, a columnist for the Western New England College student newspaper, The Westerner, noted the irony of the college not having a radio station when the school was referred to by an acronym (WNEC) that resembled radio station call letters. This association was so apparent that a predecessor publication, the W-N-E-C News, incorporated an illustration of a radio tower in its flag when it launched the rebranded paper in 1951 following the school’s name change (it was previously part of Northeastern University). Nearly 20 years later, students did launch a campus radio station, calling it WNEK. And eventually, the school became a university and switched to a three-letter acronym (WNE), leading to far less confusion with radio stations on and off campus.

Touring WNEK in March 2026

Before knowing any of this history, on a frozen foggy March morning I navigated snowy and icy roads on my way to visit Western New England University’s college radio station WNEK “The Voice” in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the midst of its 50th anniversary celebration, the station has been hosting a variety of events, including a birthday rave and commemorative broadcast.

Vinyl on the Turntable and on the Shelves

When I entered the studio in the St. Germain Campus Center, a record was spinning on the turntable during WNEK Director of Shows Jake Lavallee’s live program. “I’m a big physical media collector,” Lavallee noted, as we chatted with members of the WNEK leadership team. Over the years he’s brought in his own records to play on the air and he also expressed his appreciation for the WNEK music library, noting that he and Head of PR Steven Bromberger are especially “fond of the vinyl,” at the station. Luckily, the on-air studio shelves are full of LPs from the past, which the crew of WNEK members happily pulled from in order to share some of their favorite albums with me.

Classic rock records from Journey, Supertramp and Steve Miller Band reside near albums from a mix of artists and genres. Hip hop and 1990s electronic dance music releases sit alongside albums from Linkin Park, Weird Al Yankovic, and 1980s classics from Oingo Boingo, Modern English and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. In addition to the 12″ records, some even older 7″s are in boxes in another section of the spacious studio.

Closet Full of Gems: From CDs to Vintage Audio Recordings

Only about half of the music library is housed in the studio, with the WNEK CD collection stashed away in a dark upstairs closet. By the glow of cell phone flashlights, we did a quick archeological dig through the space and spotted gems from decades past. Stored near the CDs are a smattering of carts (including one containing an Edwin Starr cover of “War”), as well as a metal cabinet covered with stickers.

WNEK’s Shared Office with Fellow Campus Media Organizations

After moving from a nearby building, WNEK has been broadcasting from its current location for just about a semester. The move was so recent that a sign for WNEK still sits near the entrance to its former home across the street. Now housed within a broader media complex, WNEK shares an office with other members of student media, and operates under the umbrella of “Bold Media.” The communal space has plenty of WNEK touches on display, including event posters, “club of the semester” awards, promotional T-shirts, and a case containing vintage audio equipment. A cluster of couches provide comfortable seating for meetings and hanging out. Next door, the studio also has funky knickknacks and pop culture ephemera, including a tiny disco ball and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the Joker from Batman.

WNEK History: Radio Club Makes Plans for Station in 1969

An online-only station, WNEK gave up its FM license in 2014. When it launched in 1976 as a 10 watt class D FM station, it used the call letters WTRZ, changing them to WNEK (for “Western New England Kollege”) in 1979. Its frequency shifted around the dial over the years, not uncommon for lower wattage class D FM stations, which often struggle to be heard on the crowded radio dial. Looking closely at some of the older records at the station one can spot “WTRZ” scrawled on cardboard album covers, evidence of those short-lived call letters.

Leading up to WTRZ’s 1976 FM launch, the Western New England College Radio Club had been working behind the scenes for years to produce radio for campus and beyond. In May 1969, The Westerner reported that a radio station was in the works after the radio club was granted $2000 by the student government. The plan was for the station to set up a temporary “shack” on the first floor of Berkshire (The Westerner, 5/12/1969). Despite its hopes for debuting that fall, the station struggled to find a dedicated broadcasting space on campus. An editorial opined, “For over a year, the little radio station was promised this and promised that yet got nothing.” An accompanying cartoon depicts radio equipment set up in a bathroom stall (The Westerner, 4/14/1970).

Campus-Only WNEK-FM Debuts in 1970-1971 School Year

Radio finally came to campus in fall 1970, with the launch of a dorm-based radio station thanks to freshman Lee Soroca. On November 17, 1970, WRAP-FM began campus-only broadcasts over 87.5 FM. The Westerner reported that the station was transmitting from room 102 in Berkshire Hall and that “its coverage includes a radius occupied almost exclusively by the WNEC campus.” (The Westerner, 11/23/1970). Programming was to include a social bulletin board with announcements for campus events, ride share listings, song requests and dedications, “man on the street” interviews, and more.

Around the same time, the Radio Club’s originally-planned radio station, WNEK-FM, launched campus-only broadcasts at 88.9 FM out of a former TV lounge on the second floor of the same dorm. According to an article in the student paper, the station had 14 staff members and 200 records (The Westerner, 2/17/1971). By the following fall, programming had expanded further to include more public affairs shows and news and sports from the American Information Radio Network (The Westerner, 10/5/1971).

Radio Club Works to Obtain License for Terrestrial FM

In March 1973, the Radio Club filed an application with the FCC in hopes of obtaining a license to broadcast beyond campus. This was apparently not the first application, as The Westerner noted that the station had made repeated annual attempts to secure a license. While awaiting word from the FCC, WNEK continued campus transmissions, including music shows, forums, syndicated programming from ABC news, interviews with campus leaders (the Dean of Students spoke frankly on-air about “the drug problem”) and a marathon day of programming that included a remote broadcast from a snack bar.

WTRZ-FM Launches in 1976, Changing Call Letters Back to WNEK in 1979

In December 1974, the Radio Club was granted a construction permit for a 10 watt class D FM station. The Westerner wrote that the club expected to “modify existing transmission equipment to bring total power from the present 1 to 8 variable watts to 10 watts,” adding that this would allow the station “to be heard within a 15 mile radius, giving most commuters the opportunity to tune in” (The Westerner, 12/11/1974). Unfortunately the club’s first choices for call letters (WNEK and WNEC) were not available, so it was assigned WTRZ for the 89.1 spot on the dial (The Westerner, 2/4/1975). WTRZ finally hit the airwaves on its licensed frequency in 1976 out of its second floor studios in Berkshire Hall. By 1977 the station extended its campus reach with the addition of speakers in the Campus Center Dining Hall and Snack Bar (The Westerner, October 20, 1977). And in 1979, the station was able to resume usage of its original call letters: WNEK.

WNEK in 2026: Concerts, Mobile DJ Events and Radio

Today, as it did decades ago, WNEK extends its listener base through transmissions over speakers in the university’s campus center and dining hall. Beyond the radio broadcasts, WNEK also DJs on campus, does turntable events, and regularly hosts concerts. Every spring, WNEK produces the day-long outdoor Kodiak Music Festival at the university, showcasing student bands. Past festivals have also included collaborations with other student clubs, with games, crafts and food tables.

As far as on-air, the WNEK radio schedule includes a sports talk show (“Golden Hour Sports”), the bossa nova-focused “La Hora Tropical,” an oldies show (“the Quirky Hour”), metal program (“Modern Mood”), soundtrack show (“Silver Screen Soundtracks”) and more. When there isn’t a live show, WNEK runs automated programming, including rebroadcasts of past shows.

A Training Ground and Space for Creative Expression

During my chat with the WNEK crew, Lavallee remarked that he’s begun to do radio professionally and airs his current show, “Legacy of Rock,” on online station Cookie Monster Radio. Nearing graduation this spring, he said that he hopes to continue the program on other stations. Others chimed in that their work at WNEK aligns with career aspirations as well. Station Manager Garren Nordquist is a junior at WNE and hopes to work in audio technology after college. In addition to running the station, he hosts a metal show and plays in a metal band. He enjoys running events and working on the tech side of music and sound, telling me, “that’s what I want to go into.”

Beyond the practical skills gained by working at WNEK, its members also relish that the station is a creative space with few rules. Bromberger shared that he was drawn to WNEK in part because of the “freedom” that is given to participants, telling me that show hosts generally have “free rein.” He described the mix of tech folks and broadcasters at the station, saying, “we’re almost two tribes of people in a trench coat with those who like event production and the details of how audio is getting routed through to the speakers, to the other half of people who just love to get their voice out on the air and share what is special to them.”

Thanks to WNEK + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to everyone at WNEK for the tour and conversations. This is my 197th radio station tour report and my 138th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Coming up next: more Western Massachusetts college radio station tours + two more reports from my 2025 trip to British Columbia, Canada.

The post Radio Station Visit #197: WNEK at Western New England University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Every college campus is an adventure, requiring advance planning on my part so that I am able to navigate as quickly as possible to radio stations that are often in hidden-away locations. Before my visit to Hampshire College radio station Yurt Radio, its staff advocate John Bruner emailed specific directions. In light of the recent winter storm, he added, “I will do my best to shovel a path.” The impossible-to-miss brown wooden Yurt sat majestically within a snowy forest at the liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. As I approached, I heard music emanating from speakers affixed near the slanted door to the Yurt and saw Bruner greeting me from the doorway.

Bruner was the perfect guide for my visit, as a pirate radio class that he co-taught as a student (along with David Murphy) served as the inspiration for the creation of the Hampshire College campus radio station. The January term class was initially offered in 1994. For Bruner, the goal was to explore electronics and circuit building, while his co-teacher’s emphasis was on radio. Students were so enamored with the class, that there was a groundswell of support to launch a radio station. With licenses becoming available for low power FM (LPFM), that was investigated as an option, as were other campus-only transmission methods, including radiant FM. An experimental antenna may or may not still be perched in one of the trees nearby. Ultimately, the station decided to stick to internet streaming and got permission to outfit the Yurt for its studio.

Also a student-built project, the Yurt was conceptualized and constructed in the 1990s. By 1998 the Yurt was completed and opened as a common space for students. At the time it was open 24/7 for meetings, drum circles and other impromptu gatherings. Soon after, the radio group presented a successful proposal to create a station within the Yurt. Shelving was added and equipment secured, before Yurt Radio began transmissions that initially aired only over the campus internet. Today the station streams to the world and continues to be a student-led project in a student-managed space.

Bruner now works at Hampshire College as an Advanced Media Technical Specialist and as part of his job keeps an eye on the station that he’s been part of for more than 30 years. While sharing photos of the station construction, he noted, “I built it physically,” while also emphasizing the day-to-day work of the students that manage Yurt Radio.

At the time of my visit in early March 2026, Yurt Radio was starting to ramp up for the semester. The first DJ meeting was held the week prior and students were still getting trained on the equipment. Around 65 people are on the member roster, with perhaps a dozen working actively at the station. These are impressive numbers for a school with just over 700 students. The students managing Yurt Radio are known as “signers,” and they coordinate scheduling, funding and even trash removal from the space. Behind the scenes, Bruner said he encourages students to play Hampshire-made material since he likes the idea of filling the stream with sounds that you “can’t get anywhere else.”

Teddy Stahl, a 4th year student and Yurt Radio Signer, popped into the studio mid-way through my visit. A huge fan of physical music, Stahl listens to several albums a day, methodically logging the titles. His list had just crossed the 1,862 records mark on the day that he chatted with me. As we looked around the studio, he pointed out a selection of CDs that he had organized within a rack in preparation for future listening. Arranged loosely in the order of his expected level of interest, this curated collection of CDs are a small part of the universe of music that he consumes.

I was surprised to see a pretty large batch of cassette tapes at Yurt Radio and both Bruner and Stahl told me that they are played on the air. Stahl also checks out cassettes regularly as part of his overall listening project. A radio fan too, he spoke enthusiastically about the vast radio offerings on the website Radio Garden, telling me, “I think it’s awesome that you can hear radio from around the world,” adding that, “I think the exploration of music is really fun.” At Yurt he relishes being around so much physical music and explained that he enjoys choosing albums based on the artwork, describing the process as being able to “window shop music.” In turn, he finds that doing radio can provide “a window for people into your life,” as listeners get to tune in to hear deeply personal selections.

Over and above the music, Stahl is drawn to the experimental aspect of the station, which affords DJs the “freedom” and “autonomy” to do their shows as they please, from mashing up different sources to playing around with the left and right audio channels. He finds joy in doing this type of radio and described Yurt Radio is not only an “inviting” place, but also “great place to express yourself.” He explained that participants respect and care about the station, adding that, “It’s a sacred space.”

Thanks to Yurt Radio + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to John Bruner and Teddy Stahl for the conversations and tour of Yurt Radio. This is my 196th radio station tour report and my 137th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #196: Yurt Radio at Hampshire College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“CiTR is in fact a Nardwuar cult,” joked CiTR Vice President Dani Larose in a message to me after my visit to the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus and community radio station in Vancouver. It’s not surprising that CiTR’s most famous and perhaps quirkiest show host might lure people to the station. Journalist and broadcaster Nardwuar the Human Serviette (aka John Ruskin) has reached superstar levels of fame, even having a special Nike skateboarding shoe crafted in his honor in December 2025. He started in radio at CiTR in 1986 while he was a student at UBC and continues to do a weekly show.

While he wasn’t on the scene during my June 2025 visit, one could catch glimpses of Nardwuar ephemera on the station’s walls and in its archives. 1990s-era handbills for Nardwuar-produced shows were on display and I also saw organizational documents that he created when he was the station’s volunteer manager. His website even contains vintage CiTR tours that he conducted in 1987 and 1995, which warms my heart as both an archivist and a radio station field trip addict. His enthusiasm for CiTR is palpable and those video documents are a great introduction to the station’s rich history.

UBC Radio History: Wireless Club Forms in 1919

Interest in radio and broadcasting at UBC stretches back to 1919, when a wireless club was formed on campus. Before there was ever a broadcast station at UBC, the radio club presented lectures on a variety of topics, including broadcast station design. By 1930, the club was touring local radio stations and making plans for a future broadcast. A few years later, in November 1934, the radio club received a proposed budget request in the hopes of setting up a shortwave broadcasting station. A 1938 mention in student newspaper, The Ubyssey, referred to the group as “the shortwave club” and by 1939 the club was connecting with other university stations over shortwave.

Students Launch Radio Programming at UBC in 1937 and Radio Society Forms in 1939

While the radio club continued its amateur radio work, others on campus started creating radio programming beginning in 1937. A studio was set up in the Aggie Building at UBC and a student-created show aired on local station CJOR under the banner of “Varsity Time.” Segments focused on student clubs and also included musical selections, interviews, and scripted “playlets.” A September 1938 piece in The Ubyssey reported, “Out of the restless longing of youth to make its voice heard across the undulating ether, there was created in days gone by a new institution, ‘Varsity Time.'” A special presentation in January 1939 was brought to the stage in a campus auditorium, with programming broadcast over a public address system. A few weeks later, Varsity Time changed its name to The Radio Society and established a new club on campus. “It is hoped that the Radio Society will control student broadcasts of a cultural and educational nature, and will present programs more representative of the various aspects of university life,” reported The Ubyssey (2/3/1939).

UBC Radio in the 1940s Utilizes Public Address System and Explores Broadcasts over CBC

By 1944 the UBC Radio Society was utilizing the “campus public address systems” to transmit entertainment to students (The Ubyssey, 9/26/1944) and was preparing to air programming over the CBC, including reports about the university’s role in the war effort (The Ubyssey, 10/31/1944). In 1945, plans were in the works for the society to be able to “broadcast direct from the campus, by means of a communications line from Brock Hall to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,” according to an article in The Ubyssey, which noted that, “For the first time they will broadcast university sports events and music to listeners in the province” (The Ubyssey, 11/1/1945).

Radio Society Sponsors Formation of Amateur Club

The interconnected nature of ham radio and broadcasting on college campuses plays out in an interesting way at UBC. In October 1945, The University Radio Society sponsored the formation of an amateur radio club, bringing ham radio back to campus following WWII. The new club for “students interested in amateur short wave radio” was organized “to bring together ‘ham’ operators on the campus with others interested in obtaining their licenses” in the hopes of setting up a shortwave station (The Ubyssey, 10/11/1945). By early 1946 these members of the Amateur Radio Operator’s Association were in the midst of constructing a 200 watt shortwave transmitter (The Ubyssey, 1/15/1946). And in 1947 the UBC Amateur Radio Club (VE7ACS) was said to be “operating one of the most powerful transmitters on the shortwave band” (The Daily Ubyssey, 10/24/1947).

For the UBC Radio Society (Radsoc), programming continued over the campus loudspeaker network from the 1940s through at least the early 1980s, although additional methods were also employed throughout this period, with some shows airing over local Vancouver stations.

Radsoc Begins AM Carrier Current Transmissions to Campus Buildings in 1964

In 1964, The Radio Society (Radsoc) launched carrier current broadcasts over 650 AM. These transmissions, running from 8:30 am to 11:30 pm on weekdays, initially reached several buildings on campus, with the hope that all student residences would soon be able to pick up the station. The Ubyssey reported that Radio UBC was the first carrier current station at a Canadian university (2/18/1964). By 1967, the station was using call letters CYVR. A decade later, as carrier current regulations were changing in Canada, the station was asked to apply for an official license. After being granted a carrier current license in July 1974, the station changed call letters to CITR to comply with CRTC guidelines.

CITR adds cable FM in 1977 and terrestrial FM in 1982

In February 1977, CITR added cable FM broadcasts, allowing it to reach “200,000 homes in Vancouver” (The Ubyssey, 2/25/1977). Through this method, Cablevision customers could listen to the station at 89.5 FM by connecting their cable to their radios. By 1982, the station’s longtime dreams were realized, as it prepared to launch over terrestrial FM. At the time, CITR was transmitting its broadcasts in several ways: the public address system in the student union building, AM carrier current to campus housing, and cable FM to local residents. Announcing CITR’s April 1, 1982 launch over FM, The Ubyssey reported that the station was “granted the last available low-power frequency left in the Vancouver area.” CITR was later able to increase its power and continues over FM today, along with its online stream.

Touring CiTR in 2025

Today, CiTR (the station prefers to use a lowercase “i”) operates both a radio station and the magazine Discorder out of its home on the UBC campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. When entering the light-filled, mall-like and lively student union building (known as the AMS Student Nest), the CiTR space is easy to spot from the central atrium. The call letters and frequency (101.9 FM) are inscribed in such large type that they fill the studio window and an illuminated “on air” light hangs from the wall above. Additionally, a black CiTR Discorder logo adorns a concrete pole in front of the station. Located down a flight of stairs from the atrium, CiTR welcomes visitors during tours every weekday. Passersby can also pop by to grab a free copy of the station’s longtime (since 1983!) arts and culture magazine Discorder.

Another interesting feature of the CiTR space is its set of accordion-style windows that can be opened completely. The front windows abut the station’s lounge, which is full of seating, making it a regular student hangout option. But what’s especially cool is that CiTR can share live music with bigger crowds by simply opening those windows when musicians drop in for performances in the lounge. This semester’s activities in the space include a merch swap, movie screening, and open house.

CiTR’s Unique Organizational Structure: Student Club and Non-Profit Society

Run by a professional staff, but managed by students; CiTR has a unique organizational structure. Station Manager Jasper Sloan Yip explained, “CiTR is a student club, radio station, and it’s a non-profit society registered with the province of BC. So it has an interesting structure in that we have sort of three levels of governance.” A group of student executives run CiTR and “set the vision” for the station according to Yip. Professional staff then work to “execute on their executive vision.” Additionally, behind the scenes, a board of directors functions in more of a governance role, advising on broader areas like budget and by-laws, as opposed to the day-to-day operations of the station. This board is elected and appointed by the university and by the CiTR membership.  

Student Engagement is High at CiTR and on an Upswing Post-Pandemic

On a recent “Fun Drive” fundraiser show, student members of CiTR spoke of their love for the station above all other campus activities, joking that they are majoring in CiTR. Sloan told me that student engagement at the station feels stronger and deeper than when he joined the staff in 2019. He credits the Student Executive team for hosting more events at the station, which has no doubt helped boost CiTR’s membership into the range of 150 to 250 people in a given year. He described the station as a “community third space” and “media training organization,” explaining that a key aspect of that is that the radio station and the magazine feel more connected than in the past.

Student Radio Collectives at CiTR include the Indigenous Collective

Along with that “third space” ethos, former radio show collectives that would produce shows around a given interest area now function more like “organizing units” that operate on the radio and beyond. Yip said, “We don’t really require the collectives to have any kind of specific output, like a radio show. They can. They’re welcome to. But they can also plan events, or they can work in the archive, or they can just watch movies.” One such group, the Indigenous Collective, produces “Unceded Airwaves,” a program that is “committed to centering Indigenous voices and offering alternative narratives that empower Indigenous people and their stories.” A recent episode focused on a campus library devoted to Indigenous scholarship, research, and archives.

CiTR Vice President Dani Larose (who is one of the student executives) ran “Unceded Airwaves” for a few years starting in 2023 and said that it was a pivotal experience after she joined CiTR. “I was 19, had no idea how to run a show nor a collective, but our station manager Jasper took a chance on me. It gave me the opportunity to interview artists, learn how to create spoken word programming and increase Indigenous presence at the station and on the airwaves,” she shared.

Diverse On-Air Schedule with around 90 Shows

Made up of both students and non-student participants, the CiTR schedule (comprised of around 90 shows) is probably around 50% student-produced programming according to Yip. He noted, “And that’s great, because when I started, it was more like 75 community, 25 percent students. So it’s really started to shift towards students, which is what we like to see.” He likened the station to “a student club house,” and pointed out how even the decor has shifted in recent years because of students.

The CiTR schedule includes a wide variety of programming, including music across genres (classical, electronic, dub, new releases, folk, metal, salsa, punk, experimental, indie pop, hip hop, dark ambient, international, etc.) as well as talk programming (the long-time show “QueerFM,” syndicated show “Democracy Now,” plus other shows focusing on arts, culture, relationships, sports, news, etc.). Creativity is encouraged at CiTR and a strong example of that is the station’s “24 Hours of Radio Art” event, which showcases experimental music, sound art and noise. Playlists and audio from the January 2026 edition can be found on the CiTR website.

Vibrant CiTR Space

Like the sounds emanating from its radio signal, the bright and cheery space at CiTR is also full of personality. High up on a blue wall in the lounge is the CiTR/Discorder Donor Appreciation Wall, displaying cassette tapes and vinyl records labeled with the names of the most generous donors to the station. Across the room, a gallery of painter Steve Keene’s artwork featuring mainly artists local to the B.C. area sits atop shelves affixed to a lime green wall. I’ve spotted Keene’s wooden album-style paintings at numerous college radio stations, so it was nice to see such a large collection at CiTR.

CiTR Promotional Items Include LPs, Beanies, Dice and Music Compilations

Underneath the paintings, the shelves are dotted with posters, CiTR compilation LPs, and even a paper boombox. A nearby display shows an array of eye-catching CiTR merchandise, including tote bags and t-shirts. The station also produces more unusual items, including bright blue beanies and translucent pink dice. Outside the station sits a rack containing copies of CiTR compilation records as well as issues of Discorder, all free for the taking.

Physical Music Cherished at CiTR

In addition to compilation LPs and Discorder, CiTR has also produced limited edition cassettes in recent years. A series of “Live from the Fishbowl Sessions” collections were released between 2015 and 2020 and feature recordings of artists that have played in the CiTR lounge. This dedication to physical media is also clear while walking through the station’s extensive music library. Yip estimated that the collection contains around 40,000 CDs, 11,000 LPs, 9,000 7-inch records, and 300 cassette tapes. Running out of space for the ever-growing library, CiTR now only accepts physical music from local artists, while focusing on digital music adds for everything else.

CiTR Archives Department and Reading Room

While I was heartened by the sight of a well-organized music library, I was equally thrilled to see CiTR’s dedicated archives room, which focuses on paper materials. Organized by a library science graduate student intern, JT Thomas, as part of a work-learn program, the space is set up like a reading room that one might find in a library’s special collections. After conducting an archival audit to assess materials located throughout CiTR, Thomas worked to develop systems and protocols for future volunteers utilizing the archives. At the time of my visit, the Archives Reading Room offered drop-in hours two afternoons a week for those interested in accessing the station’s physical collection. Within the room are copies of Discorder magazine, a 1990s CiTR hip-hop publication called Elements, 1990s-era CiTR training manuals and more.

In addition to its archival work within the station, CiTR also regularly sends copies of Discorder to UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections and to the AMS (Alma Mater Society) for preservation. Digital copies of Discorder are included in the college radio collection that I curate within the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications on the Internet Archive and can also be read directly from the CiTR website. It’s inspiring to see CiTR’s dedication to both preservation of and access to its materials.

Radio is Alive and Well at CiTR

The objects and artifacts of radio and radio spaces tell us much about the spirit of a station. And CiTR feels full of life and creativity. Larose sums that up nicely. “Non-profit radio is not dead, not even dying. Come to CiTR and you will see that ten-fold. If you work tirelessly to create INVITING and truly culturally-safe spaces for marginalized people, you’ll find that your radio station will not die,” she mused, adding, “You’ll find these signs of life on our bulletin boards, in the mini-fridge, hear it on the air, in our programming guide, in our digicam photos, our booming Instagram page and recent editions of Discorder mag full of student pieces.”

Thanks to CiTR + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Jasper Sloan Yip for the tour of CiTR. Before even setting foot in the station, I also got a great introduction to CiTR culture from two of the student executives: President Jay Ballack and Vice President Dani Larose. Fellow attendees at the National Campus and Community Radio Conference (NCRC) in June 2025, they shared with me their passion for CiTR and their enthusiasm for campus and community radio generally. I appreciate that Larose spoke with me further over email following the conference, giving me more insight into the world of CiTR. This is my 195th radio station tour report and my 136th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #195: CiTR-FM at University of British Columbia appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Treasure hunt is the best way to describe the whirlwind afternoon that I spent at campus and community radio station CJSF 90.1 FM at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada in June 2025. Every inch of the station tells a story. Guided by Music Coordinator Connor Ashton and Programming Coordinator Jesse Wentzloff, we toured through shelves of records, checked out drawers of 7″s, peered into boxes of early community radio conference documents, and reminisced about bands and events.

Touring CJSF’s Living Archive

Even though CJSF moved to its current basement space in the Student Union Building just five years ago in 2021, the station feels lived in and full of history. Thankfully, CJSF brought tens of thousands of records into its new home, along with amazing archival material and objects from its many decades of existence, including sticker-covered cabinets.

However, not all the stickers made it to the new location. “One of our biggest losses in the move was that the door to the studio was just covered in a multi-layer patina of the stickers. And…we couldn’t bring it with us because it didn’t fit in,” Wentzloff shared. Despite that loss, there are still plenty of sticker-covered shelves and cabinets at CJSF. Within the layers of decals, I was shocked to see one from the early 1990s from a friend’s obscure record label, Electro Motive Records. And then after searching within the station’s music database, we found a few releases from that label from the same vintage.

Cassettes in the CJSF Archives

So much material within the walls of CJSF reflects various moments of college radio’s trajectory — from music magazines to cassettes documenting local bands to hand-written playlists to promotional flyers to board meeting minutes transmitted in the beginning days of email. All of that history is lovingly cared for at CJSF. Wentzloff noted that 1990s era cassettes had recently been unearthed from storage, prompting a project to organize them and even feature some on air. The resulting show, “Analog Archives,” was in the works at the time of my visit and led to the production of episodes highlighting gems from the CJSF collection.

CJSF’s Large Physical Music Library

CJSF maintains a massive music library with around 92,000 items, including approximately 50,000 CDs, 25,000 vinyl records, around one thousand cassette tapes, and the remainder digital music files. Ashton said that CJSF receives around 400 to 500 albums a month and adds perhaps 150 to 200 of them. Volunteers help to review incoming music and Ashton happily shared, “I have a cadre of wonderful folks who listen and tag.” Additionally, a weekly CJSF record club utilizes a dedicated listening station at CJSF. Similar to a book club, this group meets to chat about and listen to music.

Music Discovery in the CJSF Library through Color Codes

While the vinyl collection is filed alphabetized, the CDs are given code numbers and are arranged chronologically, in the order that they were added to the library. Staff and volunteers can locate specific releases by searching through a database to find the corresponding code numbers. Ashton articulated the care taken with the library, saying, “We do our best to keep things organized, and I harp on putting things back where they should be, not just where you found them.”

Additionally, DJs can get a sense of genres and other categories of interest by looking at color codes affixed to record spines. Posters on display at CJSF break down the color codes, which encompass not only genres but also station recommendations (“pick of the week”), Canadian content, Vancouver content, and material by female artists. CJSF also notes items that it considers “fair play” selections from under-represented groups including people of color, LGBTQ+, local indigenous artists, and folks with disabilities. Describing some of these category stickers as “discoverability tags,” Ashton explained that they hope to indicate “more than just what type of music it is, but also how it would relate to society and culture.”

With so much physical media, CJSF encourages DJs to utilize the library, which they do. Vinyl gets played and the studios are outfitted with working turntables, cassette decks and CD players, as well as bluetooth and DJ mixing tools.

CJSF Schedule includes Mix of Music and Talk Shows

CJSF welcomes both student and non-student members. Currently there are around 80 to 90 volunteers, with about 50 percent students. Both Wentzloff and Ashton are long-time participants and show hosts, with Wentzloff starting off as a volunteer in 2009, before eventually moving into various staff positions. He’s one of the hosts of “Vancouver Mix Tape,” which focused on the Vancouver independent music scene. Ashton hosts a chiptune/video game music show, “Bitcouver.” He has been in his role in the music department for 4 years and has been a volunteer for over 8 years.

Ever since the move to the Student Union building, CJSF has had to restrict live shows to between the hours of 9am and 10pm. That means that from 10pm to 9am all the programming must be pre-recorded. Shows are a mix of music and spoken word, including some syndicated programming. The range of music played includes metal, jazz, hip-hop, experimental, punk, post-punk, screamo, local independent music and more. Talk programming includes syndicated shows like “Democracy Now” and “Alternative Radio,” as well as a number of CJSF-produced shows focusing on the arts (“The Arts Show”), news, and more. “Speak Up!“, an hour-long public affairs and talk magazine show produced by CJSF, airs three mornings a week. Recent episodes include interviews with artists, pieces about recent local protests, and guests sharing details about Black History Month events.

Digging into the History of CJSF

Today, CJSF broadcasts reach the greater Vancouver area over 90.1 FM and cover the world through its internet stream. However, in the early years of campus radio at Simon Fraser, transmissions were limited to the college. According to a station history on the CJSF website, “CJSF Radio has been around since the early days of Simon Fraser University, first as a music club, then an oddball, unlicensed radio station that was heard from a series of speakers placed around the campus.”

CKSF Launches in Fall 1966 as Closed-Circuit Station

Brian Antonson helped launch the first radio station at SFU in fall 1966. In a piece for the university website, he shares his recollections, writing, “I was a brand new 1st-year student…To my delight, nobody had yet started a campus radio station at SFU, which was then only a year old.” He quickly worked with other students to organize a meeting, obtain equipment, and get permission to use a janitor’s closet as the station’s home. Using CKSF as their call letters (for “Canadian Kilocycles, Simon Fraser” according to a piece from the Canadian Communications Foundation), members of the station initially played records for people who congregated in the nearby Rotunda. The broadcasts were carried by wire to speakers. In it first year, programming aired on weekdays from 10am to 4pm at the minimum, including music shows, news, interviews, and reports from rallies and speeches. By 1973, CKSF’s schedule was packed with shows from 9am to midnight on weekdays.

1970s: Simon Fraser Campus Radio Society and CSFU Continue Campus-Only Broadcasts

In 1974 the Simon Fraser Campus Radio Society was established. In Fall 1976, SFU’s student newspaper The Peak wrote of the former CKSF’s return to the air (after a six month absence) with new call letters CSFU. By 1980, the station could be heard in a few places on campus. As described in a September 30, 1980 article in The Peak, the station “operates on a broadcasting system known as ‘in-house distribution.’ This permits them to be heard only in the rotunda, the South court lounge, the East concourse cafeteria, the CNIB, and hopefully soon, the Pub.” Ever since CKSF’s launch in 1966, plans were afoot to expand even further, with the goal of switching to campus-only AM carrier current and eventually to FM.

1980s: Call Letter Change to CJIV, Launch of AM Carrier Current Transmissions and Cable FM

In the summer of 1981, carrier current was on the horizon for the station. In preparation, it announced in an article in The Peak that its call letters were changing to CJIV, with plans to begin broadcasts that September. It’s unclear if it met that deadline, but in September 1982 The Peak reported that CJIV could be heard in campus residences over 650 AM. A few years later CJIV was approved for cable FM and was expected to launch over 94.5 FM in November 1985. Schedules from 1986 indicate that CJIV was broadcasting sporting events and playing alternative music over cable FM as planned. A June 1986 CJIV Top 40 list includes albums from Butthole Surfers, The Connells, Big Black, Cocteau Twins, and more.

1992 and Beyond: Call Letters Change to CJSF, with Debut of 90.1 FM Broadcasts in 2003

In January 1992, CJIV changed its call letters to CJSF “in an effort to be taken more seriously” and was broadcasting over 93.9 cable FM. And in 2003, CJSF reached another milestone when it finally hit the terrestrial airwaves at 90.1 FM, after securing an FM license. Evidence of the station’s shifting call letters and frequencies can be seen while looking through the record library in particular, with “CJIV” scrawled on albums from the 1980s. During the CJIV era, the station also ran a label called Three Minute Mile Records. We spotted a few of the early 7″s from the label on our tour, including brightly colored singles from Cat’s Game and Dirt.

While wandering through the collection of materials at CJSF, Ashton and Wentzloff reflected back on the wide variety of events, promotional items, and traditions from the station’s past. In some cases they are hoping to bring back things that used to happen, such as a regular feature in the student newspaper highlighting CJSF charts and album reviews.

Near the end of the visit, I was amused to see that amongst the typical college radio station staples (couches, disco ball, sticker-covered shelves, hand-made signage related to policies, etc.) there were also a number of plastic U.S. Postal Service mail bins being used for incoming and outgoing mail and to store music. Ashton remarked that they had dozens of them because they are “nice and sturdy” and are “good boxes for sorting and everything.” I see them used for those purposes at stations throughout the United States, but was surprised to see them in active use in Canada. Ashton wasn’t sure if Canada Post still made bins like that, but after looking around a bit, we saw a few similar ones at CJSF.

Thanks to CJSF + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Connor Ashton and Jesse Wentzloff for the delightful dig through CJSF. This is my 194th radio station tour report and my 135th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #194: CJSF-FM at Simon Fraser University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On a Sunday drive from Vancouver to Abbotsford, British Columbia last June, Aaron Levy narrated the landscape, pointing out locations used during the filming of various series (including some of my personal favorites: Riverdale and Bates Motel) in British Columbia. CIVL 101.7 FM, where he serves as Executive Director, had its star turn in 2024, when the college radio outlet had a brief cameo in Danger in the Dorm, a Lifetime movie that is notable in part because of the casting of former reality star Bethenny Frankel. Sadly, the radio station isn’t the site of peril or heroics in the film, but it makes for a fun bit of trivia for the campus and community station at University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).

CIVL on Film

After arriving on campus, Levy shared souvenirs from the film shoot, including goofy student activities flyers for a “Self-Love Social Club” and a “Volleyball Competition” and signage for the radio station at the fictional Brighton University. He said the flyers were “just things they put up to make it look like it’s a random campus community radio station.” The generic styling for the movie-version of CIVL (which had different call letters in Danger in the Dorm) is vastly different from the actual station, whose call letters and dial spot appeared adjacent to the words “semi-obscure” on Levy’s car radio display.

However, the spirit of the “real” CIVL is captured in the 2025 documentary, Counterculture: 20 Years of CIVL Radio in the Fraser Valley, which I caught at a screening during the National Campus and Community Radio Conference just a few days before visiting the station. In fact, that film and Levy’s passion for campus radio is what led me to venture out of the city for another radio field trip.

History of CIVL Radio

In 2003, the germ of an idea for a radio station at UFV began with the work of the Radio Station Development Committee. Student surveys at the time indicated great interest in launching a station and by 2005 a non-profit radio society was founded. Although an FM license was granted in 2006, CIVL didn’t take to the terrestrial airwaves until 2010. In the meantime, the station streamed online, beginning in 2008. Recently, CIVL expanded its broadcast range after receiving CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) approval in 2025 for a transmitter at 92.3 FM in Chilliwack, where UFV has an additional campus.

Touring CIVL at University of the Fraser Valley

Located in the Student Union Building on UFV’s main campus, CIVL is upstairs in a high visibility area. Nearby, a CIVL banner hangs amongst the variety of flags from student organizations, nations and affinity groups displayed over the center atrium of the building. Passersby can peek into the studio and DJs can look out into the building and a campus eatery. Housed in this space since 2015, CIVL’s digs are full of a familiar mix of the old and the new. Music-related artifacts populate every room, including illustrated event posters and cabinets plastered with band and radio station stickers.

At around 20 years old, CIVL is one of the newest campus and community radio stations in Canada. Its studio is outfitted with some of the latest tech gear, including an inherited (yet barely used) industrial-looking sound board and automation software. But CIVL also cherishes music history and has a library full of LPs, 7″ records, cassettes, and CDs, with many dating back to before the station began.

Music Library Runs the Gamut from Old to New

The majority of the older records are located in the back of the station and are loosely organized in cabinets and shelves. Unfortunately after a station move a decade ago, CIVL ended up with less space, so the library is not as easy to navigate. As we poked around, the variety of records was fascinating. Stacks of 1950s and 1960s-era releases from Harry Belafonte, John Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Perry Como and the Ventures were steps away from a Dixieland Jazz record and an LP from the Soviet Army Chorus. Decorative album covers propped in CIVL’s front window represent the 1970s and 1980s, with releases from Olivia Newton-John and The Cars alongside the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and its parody Saturday Night Fiedler.

Levy told me that not as many people use the records as he’d like, which isn’t that uncommon at stations with easy-to-use digital libraries. DJs are encouraged to play physical music and a “newest releases” bin contains some of the latest CDs added to the library, including albums by Contrived, Kelly McMichael, Veronica Lewis and Alana Yorke. People also frequently bring in their own music, including vinyl records. As is the case at other Canadian stations, CIVL must generally air 35% Canadian content, so there’s a big emphasis on supporting local artists. Recent “Top 30” lists from CIVL lend credence to this emphasis on local, with the top 15 artists and 21 of the top 30 artists on the February 10, 2026 chart hailing from Canada.

Fraser Valley Music Awards and Support of Local Music

In addition to supporting local artists over the airwaves, CIVL has been hosting its annual Fraser Valley Music Awards since 2016. The event specifically focuses on artists local to the area and winners are recognized across a range of categories, including “artist of the year” in genres groupings organized around jazz/roots/blues, punk/metal, adult alternative, singer-songwriter, rock, experimental, country, electronic, hip hop, pop, and RNB. Nominees and winners are all featured on the CIVL website, with links to their music.

Broad Music and Programming Mix on CIVL

The variety of genres covered by the Fraser Valley Music Awards is representative of the breadth of music played on CIVL. The schedule includes a mix of syndicated and locally-produced music and spoken word programming. Highlights include SemiObscure (“hip-hop to harsh noise, top 40 to the underground”), Zuba Zuba Trio (“three Japanese international students talk about the cultural differences between Japan and Canada”), Naija Vibes (music from Nigeria), and The Coleman Show (talk show focused on hockey, including the Vancouver Canucks and the Abbotsford Canucks).

Additionally, this diversity of programming has garnered accolades over the years. Awards on display at CIVL include numerous trophies and certificates granted in recognition for music shows, public affairs programming and community service. There’s also a 1st place award for the 2009 Punk Bowlers Ball, which was held in Vancouver.

During my weekend visit, automation was running through a pre-set line-up of music. Levy said that most of the live in-person shows are on weekdays, typically in the mornings. Following the pandemic, many hosts now opt to pre-record their programming. Initially that was facilitated through an emergency relief grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Thanks to that funding, CIVL purchased portable mixing consoles and microphones, which allowed programmers to produce show from home.

Located near the campus newspaper, The Cascade, CIVL also contributes a regular column, “The Shuffle,” written by Levy. He’s been writing the column for 18 years and joked that he’s probably been published in the paper more than anyone else “because I never stopped.” Recent editions of “The Shuffle” are themed annotated playlists featuring music selections related to timely events or holidays, including the Superbowl, Black History Month and New Year’s. It’s a wonderful way for Levy to share his music taste, especially since he initially learned about campus radio when he was a college student at University of Guelph and was drawn to CFRU because it was “the room full of CDs.” He reminisced with me, saying that at the time he was into a range of artists, from Madlib to Yo La Tengo.

Thanks to CIVL + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Aaron Levy for the wonderful road trip and tour of CIVL. This is my 193rd radio station tour report and my 134th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #193: CIVL-FM at University of the Fraser Valley appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“Keep Nanaimo Weird” reads a piece of artwork on the wall of CHLY 101. 7 FM, a campus and community radio station in Nanaimo, British Columbia in Canada. Affiliated with Vancouver Island University (formerly known as Malaspina College) “through its purpose and membership,” the station is located off-campus in Nanaimo’s historic downtown. Situated next to a community co-operative bike shop and in the basement of bar/music venue The Queen’s, CHLY is accessed through the back of the building on the charmingly-named Lois Lane. Appropriately, a brightly colored super hero mural covers an adjacent wall.

History of CHLY: From Conception to Streaming to FM

A relatively young station, CHLY began streaming online in 2000 and took to the FM airwaves in fall 2001. It originated as a project of Malaspina College Professor John Black in 1990, when he helped to found the Nanaimo Education and Community Media Society. In 1997, The Radio Malaspina Society was formed. By 2008 the university began operating under the name Vancouver Island University.

The March 1995 issue of the Malaspina University-College newsletter, Mainly Malaspina, ran an article “Radio Malaspina Poised to Sign On” by its founder John Black. At the time the station was “on the brink of implementation as a closed-circuit operation on the Nanaimo campus,” Black writes. He describes the planned method, saying that the station hoped to transmit “over the campus cable system, so that it is accessible in lounges, classrooms and the cafeteria by plugging in a radio tuner to the campus cable outlet.”

Radio Malaspina began streaming online on April 1, 2000, while it awaited word about its application for a broadcast license (take a look at its old website circa 2001 on the Wayback Machine) and officially launched as CHLY 101.7 FM on October 5, 2001. By 2008 the university began operating under the name Vancouver Island University, although the CHLY-FM license holding organization still utilizes the name Radio Malaspina Society.

Touring CHLY during the National Campus and Community Radio Association Conference

My visit to CHLY in June, 2025 coincided with the National Campus and Community Radio Association Conference (NCRC), which was hosted by CHLY on the Vancouver Island University campus. During a welcome event, attendees were invited to the station for dinner and entertainment on the adjacent outdoor patio. Before the grill was fired up, I took a quick semi-self-guided tour of the station. Staff and volunteers were on hand to answer questions as folks from all over Canada wandered through to check out their space.

One of the more unusual features of the station is a kitchen, which was certainly in use as CHLY members prepped to host dinner for a crowd. Exposed brick walls are visible near the station entrance, where a counter is filled with informational literature. An open area has desks for CHLY staff and volunteers. Overhead one can see a loft area that is used mainly for storage.

Proceeding down a hall towards the studio are shelves full of CDs. Filed in chronological order of their add date, the CDs are in the midst of being digitized by station volunteers. The on-air studio is tucked in the back of the space, near storage lockers and stairs that lead to a washroom. DJs are able to use turntables, CD players, as well as digital music that has been added to the CHLY library.

Programming Mix: Music, Spoken Word and News

Most programming over CHLY is produced by local volunteers, with the schedule containing a mix of music and spoken word, as well as some syndicated shows. The wide mix of shows include “Midday Mozart” (classical music), “Into the Void” (underground, extreme and fringe music), “Queerly Beloved” (music and local interviews in the queer community), “Tuning Fork” (food and farm talk focused on local farmers), “Thrash Can” (thrash metal), and “Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio” (arts, culture and news).

Additionally, a number of the shows on CHLY are hosted by student collectives, including The Music Collective, The International Student Collective, The News and Current Affairs/Mariners Sports Collective, The Indigenous Collective, The LGBTQ2+ Collective, The Environmental Collective and the Philosophy Collective.

News is also a big part of CHLY, which launched a Nonprofit Newsroom Project. According to the project’s web page, “Our Nonprofit Newsroom Project sets out to establish a sustainable non-profit newsroom, supported by our listeners, readers, sponsors, and advertisers.” Supported by funding from the Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC) the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI), and Radiometres, CHLY has been able to hire reporters and produce news and public affairs shows. News reporting can also be found on the CHLY website.

Field Trip to CHLY Transmitter Site on a Hill

As an added bonus, I also traveled to the CHLY transmitter site on Cottle Hill in Nanaimo. At the end of a conference day, I hopped on a green propane-fueled bus with around ten other campus and community radio folks for the last-minute field trip. “Medieval Chaos” was painted on signs outside the bus and a bumper sticker inside read “My dragon can take your unicorn.” The whimsical messages provide clues to the bus’ participation as a transport vehicle to live action role-playing games in the Nanaimo area.

Owned by the CHLY Technical Director, the bus carried us on a journey to a woodsy park on a hill north of the city. After a short walk to look at the transmitter shack and beholding the cluster of communication towers, our group of radio aficionados hiked up to the summit of the hill to take in the lovely view as the sun was setting.

Thanks to CHLY + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to everyone at CHLY for hosting a really fun and educational NCRC 2025! This is my 192nd radio station tour report and my 133rd college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #192: Campus-Community Station CHLY-FM in Nanaimo, BC, Canada appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Underground is more than a metaphor for countless college radio stations which may play edgier music but are also housed beneath the earth. I’ve seen many basement digs in my travels, but none quite like the subterranean space occupied by University of Victoria’s campus and community radio station CFUV 101.9 FM in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. Located on the lower level of the school’s modernist-brutalist Student Union Building (the SUB), the station’s windows face an angled concrete wall. When looking out of the CFUV offices and studio, it feels a bit like you are observing the world from the bottom of a fish bowl. This is heightened by the presence of tables and chairs up above the moat-like well outside of the station windows. Although faces are hard to detect, dangling legs are visible from below. CFUV Station Manager Rowan Grice told me that this odd architecture has led to some atypical interactions with listeners, with some people climbing down the wall to deliver music requests to the on-air DJs.

Welcoming Community at CFUV

Promoting itself as “offbeat community-led radio since 1984,” CFUV is made up of both student and non-student participants who work “to provide an alternative to commercial radio” and “to uplift marginalized and underrepresented voices.” Volunteers are invited to not only host radio shows and podcasts, but are also provided training in audio and video production.

Before even stepping into the station’s lobby, it was clear to me that CFUV was a welcoming space. A bulletin board in the hallway is decorated with five purple posters, each outlining different ways that one can participate at CFUV. The posters promote listening to the station, tuning in to podcasts, volunteering, submitting music, and following CFUV on social media. Additionally, hand-drawn speech bubbles reading “learn new skills,” “build community,” “play local,” and “collaborate” are affixed to the CFUV window, touting the benefits of joining the station. Just below the paper signs is a melted vinyl Ashlee Simpson record, a sign that says “Drop in and Say Hello!” and a QR code that links to a volunteer application.

CFUV Open House for NCRC Attendees

During my June 2025 visit to CFUV, the station was buzzing with activity. I was amongst a large contingent of radio people who were in BC for the National Campus and Community Radio Conference (NCRC). As we all crammed into the station and chatted about radio, folks from CFUV led tours and answered questions about their lively station. Posters for past and future events blanket the studio walls, a well-organized record library is full of music, and a performance studio is set up for local and visiting musicians. Live performances take place every Friday afternoon during the “Basement Closet Sessions” show and archived episodes can be heard on the CFUV Bandcamp page and viewed on CFUV’s YouTube page. An arrangement of Polaroid photos on the studio wall documents recent guest musicians and bands, including Bongwitch, Molly Pocket, Cistern, Stax, Steel Cut Oats and Ghost Darling.

Emphasis on Local Music, Curated Record Library

Local material is emphasized at CFUV, which also must abide by Canadian Content (CanCon) regulations set by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). According to the CRTC, “English-language and French-language stations must ensure that at least 35% of the Popular Music they broadcast each week is Canadian content.” Additional rules apply for “special interest music,” for which 12% of these selections on campus and community radio stations must be Canadian.

For CFUV, with an ever-expanding record library, the decision was made to be more selective about adding physical music. Whereas the station is mostly adding digital releases, exceptions are made for local music and hard-to-find items. The physical library is organized in chronological order, based on when materials were added to the collection. In the past, the coding system was written down in books, so that DJs could search for a particular album’s designated number, but today the items are listed in a database accessed via a tablet. In addition to catalog numbers on the records and CDs, color codes indicate genres and CanCon selections. For CFUV, experimental music gets marked with a silver label and hip hop is marked with an orange label, for example. Additional two-letter codes are applied to genres and Canadian content as well as releases produced by women (Wm), local artists (Lc), Indigenous artists (In), French materials (Fr) and soundtracks (Sk).

Diverse Programming Schedule

As a result of this wide variety of music, the CFUV schedule is quite diverse and includes local and syndicated music and spoken word programming. Music shows encompass classical, jazz, blues, experimental, multicultural, metal, punk, folk, country, roots and electronic genres. Additionally, CFUV has a number of podcasts, including several focusing on topics related to indigenous peoples and culture, one created by incarcerated artists (“Dark Traveller”), one presented by the independent student newspaper The Martlet (“The Nest”), a few hosted by classes (“Gender 305: Gender and International Human Rights”) and some by student groups (“Pulse Zine” podcast from the Students of Colour Collective).

Off the air, CFUV hosts campus and community events and shares charts and music reviews in its Offbeat column in student newspaper The Martlet (whose offices are conveniently across the hall). The column is a nod to Offbeat Magazine, a print publication produced by CFUV from 1986 to 2003. While glancing through a few issues from the 1980s, I was taken back to the early days of the station. The nostalgia was appropriate, as CFUV recently celebrated its 40th year on FM. Signage and decorations from the anniversary bash add a festive touch to the CFUV volunteer office. Near a cozy couch and a space-age turntable, a binder of vintage clippings brings the station’s history to life. Although CFUV’s recent anniversary celebrated 40 years on FM, student radio activities at University of Victoria (and its predecessor institutions) stretch back even further.

Radio at Victoria College in the 1940s and 1950s

Back in 1949, an early radio group on campus, The University Radio Society, was presenting a program called “University Round Table” on Saturday nights, with dreams of eventually airing the show on downtown stations. By 1950, the Radio Club had met that goal and was planning for its first broadcast over CKDA, an AM station in Victoria. Its initial plans were for a program featuring music from the Glee and Jazz clubs and discussions about China, the Bible and psychology. The resulting broadcast on March 20, 1950 included music and an overview of the governance and history of Victoria College. The following week’s episode showcased music and a performance of a Dickens play. Student newspaper The Martlet reported that, “It is hoped that the programs will continue until the end of April with the main features being the spotlighting of the various College Clubs and student activities such as the Students’ Council, athletics, and publications.”

Campus-Only Station CJVC Begins Cafeteria Broadcasts in 1955

By 1955, the Radio Club of Victoria College was spinning records during lunchtime broadcasts that were piped in to the school cafeteria. Shows included “Make Believe Ballroom,” “Rendezvous with Records,” “Personalities in Sound,” “Foods Platter Parade,” and “The Progressive Hour.” Calling itself CJVC, “the Voice of College Radio,” this campus-only station launched on November 21, 1955. Utilizing a “amplifier system with direct wire to the cafeteria” the radio club hoped to eventually add speakers to other parts of campus, according to an entry the 1955-1956 Tower yearbook. By the following year, the station’s schedule had expanded to three hours of programming, five days a week. Shows included progressive jazz, classical, folk, news, weather, and more. Some of the records played at the station were on loan from a local music store.

During the 1957-1958 school year, “individual booth speakers” were installed in the cafeteria and shows were heard for four hours a day, six days a week. By 1958, CJVC’s schedule had grown to 27 hours a week, with news airing at 10am and 1pm. Between 1958 and 1960, additional speakers were added to a new part of the cafeteria, to the men’s and women’s commons, and to the activity hut. The station also regularly hosted dances.

Radio Club Becomes a Society in 1961; Operates from Shack

In September 1961, the club became a society within the Department of Publications and Publicity and was broadcasting on the Lansdowne campus via a closed circuit system that they had “extended to the cafeteria, the common rooms and the Services room on Argyle Street.” In addition to the campus broadcasts, Radio Victoria College also began hosting “Campus Showcase” every Sunday afternoon over local station CFAX. After the success of these broadcasts, the club was given the opportunity to control an entire day of programming over CFAX on January 19, 1962. During this time, the radio club operated out of a “8’x16’ shack down the garden path from the caf,” as described in a February 1963 piece in the Martlet, which added that, “In their confined area they have managed to crowd a broadcasting room, one studio, and a very narrow alcove which doubles as a studio.”

U.V. Radio Scores Seven-Room Space in New SUB in 1963

Considering the modest size of its original space, the radio station experienced a major upgrade later in 1963, when it moved operations to a custom-built headquarters in the basement of the new Student Union Building (SUB) on the Gordon Head campus. The station broadcast “music, campus news and occasional live events to the SUB lounge, and through telephone lines to the Lansdowne caf and commons,” wrote the Martlet on September 18, 1963. Now calling itself U.V. Radio, the campus radio station had seven rooms to itself, including three studios, a record library, office, entrance hall, and broom closet. It also began hosting the Playboy Bunny Bash, a semi-formal dance, which became an annual event. The 1964 dance featured live music from the Blue Tones, free cigarettes and bunnies “supplied by University and the Colony Motor Hotel.”

A few years later, the station had to move again — this time to the old health services building while the SUB basement was remodeled. Despite the disruption, UVic Radio expanded its broadcasts to 70 hours a week by the 1966-1967 school year. During fall 1967, it dug into the “medical shack” crawl space in order to carve out another studio and by fall 1968 the station was on the air for 16 hours a day, with transmissions to the SUB and to 180 rooms in the dorms. Interestingly, these broadcasts could not be heard on the radio, but instead were still piped in to individual speakers that had volume control, but that could not be turned off completely. This led to debates over the years about the type of music being broadcast, especially since the station had a “captive” audience.

UVic Radio aka CKVC Dies in 1970

Despite its accomplishments, the station (which was using call letters CKVC in the late 1960s and early 1970s) began facing numerous challenges and ceased broadcasts in March 1970. The final blow came in October 1970 after a major theft of station equipment. Other clubs began using its space in the shack and there were attempts to resurrect the station beginning in 1973. By this point, the hut housing the old station was slated to be demolished. In a weird twist, approval was received for a radio license but there was no available space and minimal student interest despite additional meetings in 1975.

Radio Returns with Campus-Only Broadcasts in 1983, followed by CFUV-FM in 1985

It was another few years before a group of students made an even more concerted effort to bring radio to campus, this time focusing on the ultimate goal of launching an FM station. A new radio club was formed and began closed circuit broadcasts by April 1983 using call letters CKLR. The call letters were changed to CFUV by September 1983 and after receiving an FM license, CFUV-FM launched in 1985. At this point CFUV had access to the entire 2nd floor of the SUB. A decade later, in 1996, it moved to a new studio in the lower SUB, where it remains today.

CFUV-FM Continues to Thrive in 2025

With all the ups and downs faced by the various iterations of campus radio at University of Victoria, the past 40 years represent a period of amazing growth and stability for the more public-facing CFUV-FM. Certificates from the National Campus and Community Radio Association commending various music shows as well as “Excellence in Student Programming” dot the station’s walls. The music industry has also taken note of CFUV’s support. As we chatted in his office, CFUV Station Manager Rowan Grice pointed to a 1994 gift from the Beastie Boys. Three golf balls emblazoned with the band member faces sit under a triangular plastic dome. “To CFUV-Radio. Thanks for Teeing Up The Beastie Boys October, 1994” reads a small plaque inside.

As I wrapped up my visit, Grice talked about his appreciation for the broader world of community radio, with the club-like feel and energy of stations like NTS attracting the attention of global listeners. In a strange way, the allure of these high profile stations can provide a gateway to local campus and community stations like CFUV. With that in mind, Grice said that he tries to incorporate the inspiring qualities of their online radio peers into the culture of CFUV. Much of that lies with the music, with Grice adding, “I’m always here for music discovery.”

Thanks to CFUV + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to everyone at CFUV for opening your doors to NCRC attendees. It was wonderful to be back in Canada checking out stations again! This is my 191st radio station tour report and my 132nd college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #191: CFUV-FM at University of Victoria appeared first on Radio Survivor.

It’s no surprise that the home of one of the oldest still-operating college radio stations, WESU 88.1 FM at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, is full of typical student radio artifacts. The walls are plastered with band stickers, posters and flyers. And most rooms contain shelves of CDs, vinyl records and cassettes. In fact, there’s so much physical music that the collection spills over into boxes and bins stashed here and there.

On the first day of October, General Manager Ben Michael greeted me in front of the station building and we ascended the stairs together to see the storied WESU space. With around 100 volunteers, the station includes both students and members of the Middletown community. Currently that works out to about a 60/40 split, but student interest in surging. The week before my visit, 140 students came by the WESU table at an activities fair to sign up for training.

Programming Mix at WESU

A bit different from many student-focused stations, WESU airs syndicated programming (mostly from NPR, Pacifica and the BBC) for about half of the broadcast day. Locally-produced music and talk shows hosted by students and community members run during the remaining hours, from around 4pm to 4am. The afternoon and late night mix includes a range of music including jazz, big band, reggae, hardcore, emo, metal, ambient, underground house, electronic music from southern Africa, Black and queer club music, punk, and more. This broad array of programming is meant to support WESU’s goal to broadcast music and ideas that can’t easily be found on the radio dial. That philosophy also applies to some of the syndicated programming at WESU, including shows that play punk and hardcore (“Maximum Rock and Roll Radio”) and radio art (“The Radio Art Hour”).

WESU’s Beginnings as Carrier Current Station WES in 1939

Founded at Wesleyan in 1939, WES was one of the first student-run carrier current radio stations in the United States. Known as the Cardinal Network of the Wesleyan Broadcasting System, the campus-only station was inspired by similar efforts at Brown University a few years earlier. Founding Technical Director Arch Doty (hear his interview with WESU GM Ben Michael) built his first radio receiver in 1932 and brought a homemade transmitter with him when he arrived on the Wesleyan campus in the fall of 1939. Officially launching as WES on November 9, 1939, the station operated out of Clark Hall.

By the 1948-1949 school year, WES was broadcasting six hours a day, with “recorded music, live shows — Jibers, drama and special events — and the best sports coverage in the history of the station,” according to the WES entry in the 1949 Wesleyan yearbook, Olla Podrida. Programming included “Jazz at its Best,” “Jive at Five,” campus news, a classical music hour, a show dedicated to war veterans, and rebroadcasts from FM station WDRC. In 1950, WES changed its call letters to WESU.

WESU Launches over FM in 1961

In 1961, WESU launched FM broadcasts over 88.1 FM, thanks to its newly granted 10 watt FM license. By the late 1960s, the station was able to expand coverage even further with a power increase to 1000 watts. WESU continued to operate its AM station during this time.

Until the year 2001, WES and its descendant FM station WESU were headquartered on the Wesleyan campus in the basement of Clark Hall. Today, the station is located several blocks away in a residential part of town on the second floor of a building that also houses student newspaper, The Wesleyan Argus.

Station Move and Addition of NPR Programming in Early 2000s

The WESU move in 2001 was abrupt and disruptive, with General Manager Ben Michael recounting to me that historic papers and equipment were lost in the process. A few years later, the ownership of the station shifted from an independent student corporation to the school, with the WESU license now held by Wesleyan University. Michael is the one full-time staff member and works alongside a part-time program manager as well as the station’s board of directors (which is mostly comprised of students) and student and community leaders. Students play a major role at WESU and currently recruit and train staff, facilitate board and staff meetings, manage PR, run events, and more. Michael was brought on as a staff member (he’d been a long-time volunteer prior to that) in 2005, around the same time that WESU began airing NPR programming.

Michael explained that the mid to late 1990s was a challenging time at WESU, with declining student interest in radio. Wesleyan University’s then-president Douglas Bennet, who had previously been President and CEO of NPR, led the charge for WESU to air NPR programming. Michael recounted, “When the university decided to bring NPR on board it was in part a response to the fact that the station was not being utilized during the day, every day.” He told me that the plan to add public radio programming led to “a major response and resistance on and off campus” and an “outcry” over the proposed changes to the station.

Community and Student Programs Continue at WESU

In particular, long-time community-hosted shows were to have been eliminated. In the end, some of those shows shifted to other time slots and remain on the air today in large part because students spoke out. Michael relayed that, “The students really had the back of the community volunteers because they realize this is essential services to under-served populations.” In order to retain all of the student and community-run shows, WESU opted to shorten the length of some programs and shifted the schedule so that some were on the air on alternating weeks.

WESU’s ongoing commitment to the local community is also reflected by some of its talk programming, including “Engage Radio,” a university-backed show that “highlights civic engagement initiatives at Wesleyan University’s Allbritton Center.” Michael said that the goal of the show is to “spotlight individuals and organizations that bridge the town and gown divide.” A recent episode focused on hip hop history and others have highlighted projects by the Middletown Historical Society. Another public affairs show, “River Valley Rhythms,” features interviews with local artists and regional arts promoters.

Honoring the WESU Archives

Having grown up in Middletown, Michael has a deep appreciation for the the history of WESU and its ongoing legacy. He regaled me with stories about archival audio finds and projects to bring the station’s history to life. After locating recordings from the 1980s show, “The Living Edge,” one of its co-producers crafted handmade cassettes earlier this year as a premium for WESU’s fundraiser. The cassette compilation includes cover songs performed by Wesleyan bands circa 1986 to 1989. Although a tape might seem like an unusual thing for a 2025 fundraiser gift, it makes sense for a college radio station that reveres physical music. WESU is one of the few stations that I’ve visited recently that had a collection of organized cassettes in its on-air studio.

Michael loves radio and the experience of music discovery through the stacks, telling me, “We’re all fed by these algorithms and just introducing somebody to the library and the idea of reading liner notes and using them as a cross-reference to guide you on this scavenger hunt…That’s my own experience with music here at WESU and I try and introduce students and community members to that and get them outside of the bubble a little bit.”

Thanks to WESU + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Ben Michael for the tour of WESU and for chatting with me about the station’s past and present. This is my 190th radio station tour report and my 131st college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #190: WESU-FM at Wesleyan University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“Get Loud in the Library” reads the headline on a flyer posted on a table in front of KYRS-FM, a community radio station located inside Spokane Central Library in Spokane, Washington. Promoting a series of evening performances that were held in conjunction with the 2025 Grassroots Radio Conference (GRC) in mid-September, the flyer hints at the fascinating collaboration between an urban public library and a community radio station.

How a Community Radio Station Ended up in a Public Library

A serendipitous series of events and conversations led to KYRS’ move to the library in 2022. The station was outgrowing its space on the top floor of an old hotel building and Program Director Dana Matthews felt like the station was “invisible” to its listening audience. Longtime KYRS volunteer Jason Johnson is the library’s Community Engagement Manager and suggested that the station should move there after a library remodel. During a panel discussion at GRC, he explained that the library had become more focused on the arts in recent years. Its mission has much in common with the mission of KYRS, which strives to fill “needs that other media do not, providing programming to diverse communities and unserved or underserved groups.”

Johnson noted that having KYRS onsite allows the library to “have a bigger reach into the community.” In turn, KYRS is able to attract new volunteers, programmers and listeners due to its central location in a public space. Additionally, both organizations have benefited from a variety of broadcasts from the library, including a candidate forum and town hall hosted by the Spokane NAACP.

Touring KYRS during the Grassroots Radio Conference

Located on the library’s third floor in a beautifully remodeled space, 20+ year old community radio station KYRS overlooks an open common area where events, including loud concerts, are held. With a studio and two small offices, the station also has access to a podcast studio and a production studio that are run by the library.

At appointed times during the GRC, KYRS opened its doors to conference attendees to allow them to poke around and see the inner workings of the community radio station. As a small cluster of us wandered into the studio one morning, Matthews greeted us and answered questions about the station. Although there wasn’t a live show from the studio, he was carefully monitoring audio coming in from a conference session, a live edition of the Pacifica show Sprouts, which was being broadcast live on air.

KYRS Engineer Dale Sanderson built the KYRS studio that were were touring and noted that it was his third station build. With a background in audio, he pointed out vacuum tube pre-amps that he installed in turntables and microphones at KYRS. In addition to turntables, the studio is outfitted with CD players and tape decks, allowing DJs to play from physical media. The walls are decorated with posters for various KYRS shows, letters from listeners, promotional T-shirts, and a vinyl record covered with handwritten birthday messages for Matthews.

Tucked behind the studio is a small transmitter room and an studio/office with large windows overlooking trees, historic buildings and the street below the library. The multi-purpose room contains a mixing board, microphones, computer and some office equipment.

The compact station space has some whimsical details, including cabinets with unusual printed labels that read “incurable disease specimens,” “secret plans for world domination,” and “enriched plutonium and light snacks.” Nearby a black rolling library cart sits near the wall, perhaps waiting to be filled with items to be returned to the stacks.

Thin Air Community Radio’s Roots Date Back to 1999

Founded in 1999, Thin Air Community Radio is a non-profit organization that runs community radio station KYRS 92.3 and 88.1 FM in Spokane, Washington. Beginning in 2000, Thin Air began operating as a project of the non-profit Citizens for Clean Air and applied for a low power FM (LPFM) license. After being awarded a construction permit, KYRS-LP (for “your radio station”) launched as an LPFM in October 2003. Four years later, in 2007, Thin Air Community Radio became an independent non-profit. By November 2011, the station upgraded to full power license (KYRS-FM) and now broadcasts at 6800 watts. KYRS moved to its current space in the Spokane Library in 2022 and their office moved to the library the following year.

Documenting the Station’s History

During the 2025 Grassroots Radio Conference, KYRS Office Manager Lynnea Kaylor opened a session about KYRS with a timeline of the station’s history. She also provided details about her project to preserve the “treasure trove of an archive” that she found in the station’s former office. And while outlining the story of KYRS, she shared images from the archives and described the variety of projects that the station has undertaken, including film festivals, concerts, and music events at the library. After the KYRS session, attendees were invited to take a look at a display of Thin Air Community radio materials, including early newsletters, flyers, posters, program guides, and a binders full of clippings, listener correspondence and photos.

The collected items paint a picture of the breadth of programming and activities undertaken by KYRS. The station’s on-air schedule includes a mix of music, talk, public affairs and both locally-produced and syndicated programming. During a panel discussion at the conference featuring KYRS personnel, Station Manager Michael Moon Bear said that the station also trains programmers in all aspects of audio production. Matthews added that this has led to job opportunities for some volunteers, noting that KYRS can be a “ticket to a free technical education course.”

Thanks to KYRS + Station Tour Archives and GRC Podcast

Thanks to everyone at KYRS Thin Air Community Radio for hosting the 2025 Grassroots Radio Conference and for opening up your station for tours. We recapped the GRC, including the keynote from FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, on the Radio Survivor show/podcast episode, Catching up with Community Radio at the Grassroots Radio Conference and NCRC. This is my 189th radio station tour report and my 37th community radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #189: KYRS-FM in Spokane appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Around lunchtime on a warm day in September, WYBC General Manager Jules Morris and I comb through stacks of paperwork from the Yale University radio station’s files. Car horns, traffic noises, and the sound of church bells seep through the windows of the office space on the second floor of a nearly 100-year-old apartment building facing busy Broadway Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Behind us, a wood-paneled wall serves as a backdrop for an assortment of framed photos, awards and plaques from the mid-20th century. While perched on a weathered cream colored couch, we flip through 70-year-old letters that were sent to WYBC from an all-star selection of luminaries from the time. In 1955, WYBC teamed up with the Yale Daily News to produce a series of broadcast forums. Based on the collection of letters received, the station aimed far and wide in an attempt to attract renowned and interesting speakers to campus.

WYBC Begins in 1941 as Carrier Current Station WOCD

While marveling over the correspondence from politicians, scholars, authors, poets and religious leaders; we were transported back to the campus-only days of WYBC. Launched as WOCD (for “Oldest College Daily”) in 1941, the AM carrier current station began as a project of the Yale Daily News and had offices in the newspaper’s building. Early programming included a quiz show, radio drama, round table discussions, remote broadcasts and sports play-by-play. Originally on 905 AM, WOCD moved to 640 AM by the 1942-1943 academic year and the station remained on that spot on the dial for decades.

Call Letters Change to WYBC in Mid-1940s

During the 1944-1945 academic year, WOCD split from the Yale Daily News and by 1946 had changed its call letters to WYBC (for “Yale Broadcasting Company”). The following year, WYBC helped to form the Ivy Network, which brought together college radio stations in order to collaborate and facilitate the sale of advertising spots. In 1948, Yale Broadcasting Company incorporated in the state of Connecticut as a non-profit organization.

Addition of WYBC-FM in 1959

Over the years, WYBC has worked to expand its reach through a variety of methods. A second carrier current station (WYBC-A) was added in the mid-1950s and continued until 1968. In 1959, WYBC launched another station, WYBC 94.3 FM in New Haven. A commercially licensed station, WYBC-FM allowed students to broadcast off campus for the first time. The AM carrier current station continued until at least the mid-1980s and was eventually used in part as a training station for WYBC-FM.

By 1985, WYBC-FM was struggling financially, had equipment problems, and was also grappling with questions about its role on campus and in the broader community. At the time, students and non-students were on the air and also had roles in managing the station. Controversial programming and administrative changes were made, removing some community-hosted shows from the schedule.

WYBC 1340 AM Debuts in 1998

However, in the ensuing years, fewer and fewer student DJs had shows over WYBC-FM, as the format shifted to urban contemporary hits radio. To address this, in 1998, WYBC purchased the license for the former WNHC-AM 1340, changing the call letters to WYBC. A piece in the Yale Daily News (September 15, 1998) reported that, “With more diverse music, greater freedom, and a home for student DJs, officials said the new AM frequency will complement the more professional sounding WYBC-FM.”

Student-focused WYBCx is Born, While WYBC 1340 AM shifts to Public Radio Programming

By the early 2000s, most student shows were hosted on WYBC 1340 AM, while the FM station was more outwardly focused to the local community. However, things shifted for the AM station as well, with it entering a time brokerage agreement with WSHU public radio in 2011. A few years prior, students began work on internet-only station WYBCx, which became the new student radio entity for WYBC.

WYBC Stations in 2025

Today, Yale Broadcasting Company owns and oversees WYBC-AM, WYBC-FM and WYBCx. The FM station is professionally-run and the AM station airs the WSHU lineup of NPR and other public radio content. Additionally, a Yale undergraduate student has a journalism-focused paid internship at WYBC-AM. Both terrestrial stations operate under lease agreements, which provides income to Yale Broadcasting Company.

While WYBC General Manager Jules Morris is technically in charge of all of the stations, she doesn’t run the day-to-day operations of the AM and FM signals. For big picture decision-making, she works in collaboration with the Yale Broadcasting Company’s Board of Governors (made up of alumni and community members), which helps with financial oversight and also helps to provide institutional memory for the stations.

Touring WYBCx

Morris’ home base is in the Yale Broadcasting Company-owned building that houses the offices and studios for student station WYBCx across three floors of a former apartment building. A restaurant is located on the ground floor and rent from that business is another source of income for Yale Broadcasting Company.

A Yale University junior, Morris joined WYBC her freshman year and became Program Director last year before taking on the General Manager role this semester. “I knew I wanted to do college radio,” she said, adding that, “I knew it was really important culturally or it had been really important culturally.” Her interest in college radio began during her childhood in New York, when she tuned in to the Barnard College station. She recalled, “I would listen to WBAR all the time when I was a kid just because…my parents had students who had shows or I would want to find new music.”

Variety of Programming and Projects at WYBCx

Morris said that WYBCx is currently in a “transitional” period and that luckily there is a “big group of people” who are really committed to the station. Leadership positions include chairs of various departments, including broadcast, zine, podcast, design, events, board engineering, sound engineering, “Teen Takeover,” and sports. It’s a pretty amazing mix of activities for the station, which ranges from a high school after school program to live sports broadcasts to a printed music magazine (at times called Relatively Dark Blue Neither Purple Nor Green) to the concert and interview series “The Moon,” which was inspired by Tiny Desk Concerts.

Physical Music and Artifacts at WYBCx

WYBC artifacts are tucked into various nooks and crannies on the three upper floors of the station’s 4-story building. CDs are stashed in kitchen cabinets and closets contain zine archives, posters, program schedules and other station ephemera. Vintage vinyl is here and there, including recordings of biblical readings, FDR speeches, classical records, and random 7″s. Awards throughout the space range from a 1997 award from music industry publication The Gavin Report to a 1950s certificate granting an “honorable mention” for the WYBC-produced documentary “This is College Radio.”

A skeleton poking out of a plastic bin is one of the many items brought over from the old “radio house,” where WYBC members lived for many years. A 10-minute walk from WYBCx, the rental was not only a place for radio folks to live, but its basement was also used for house shows. Morris said that sadly, “this last year nobody wanted to live there, so we lost it.” Subsequently, they had to clear out the basement, which was full of audio equipment and other accumulated items from the past 10 to 15 years.

As we poked around the second floor of WYBCx, Morris showed me the podcasting area, administrative spaces and equipment storage. She was excited about a forthcoming project in which they will be renting out equipment and sound engineering services for campus events.

A cozy hangout space with a couch, chairs and rug is on the third floor. And that floor also contains some of the station’s record library within a room with a conference table and work space for “Teen Takeover.” Morris pointed out various CDs and mentioned, “We didn’t even have until this year a way to play CDs on air,” adding “Now we just got hooked up.” Next on the agenda is to get a record player set up.

Excited about the chance to play CDs over the radio, Morris told me that she is trying to get “the broadcast heads to organize a show that’s people going through the CDs that have been sent” in by bands and promoters. She imagined a program in which DJs would pop in a random release just to check it out. As we glanced around the CDs in that space, I spotted a punk rock tribute to the 1980s, a Mr. T Experience release, and a Chumbawamba CD in the kitchen.

Cheery Top-Floor Studio at WYBCx

After trekking up another flight of stairs, one arrives in the WYBCx studio. Under a sloped roof sits a desk with a cluster of chairs, mixing board, computer, DJ mixer, microphones, headphones and speakers. String lights hang on an adjacent wall and the opposite wall is full of posters. While sitting in the broadcast space, one faces a large open area that is set up for performances. Bright orange walls, carpet, and ceiling brighten that section; which is outfitted with a drum set, keyboard, microphones, monitor speakers and music stands.

As Morris and I entered the studio, we heard loud hip hop music playing from the speakers. It was between regular shows and she explained that an automated playlist of music was being broadcast until the next DJ’s shift. As we looked out over the colorful space in front of us, Morris told me that this is where they record live music sets. However, live music isn’t confined to the WYBC space. In the couple of months since my visit, WYBCx has hosted several shows and a “pop-up rave” in various locations around New Haven.

While wrapping up my tour, Morris expressed both her excitement about the future of WYBC and also her appreciation for the station’s legacy. She said, “I want this to be a big year…and archives are such a big part of that.”

Thanks to WYBCx + Archives of Station Tours

Thanks to Jules Morris for the tour of the WYBCx space and for sharing some fascinating historical materials with me during my visit. I’ve been building a WYBC collection in the College Radio collection within the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC) on the Internet Archive, so it was amazing for me to finally see the Yale radio operation in person. Additionally, since I’ve done research within the Yale University archives over the years, the visit helped to bring that research to life. To learn more about the early 1950s at WYBC and community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam’s time at the station, see my piece, Lorenzo Milam’s College Radio Days. This is my 188th radio station tour report and my 130th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #188: WYBCx at Yale University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Perched on a shelf in the WCFM 91.9 FM studio at Williams College sit well-loved copies of Moby Dick, Ulysses, and The Idiot. Band stickers are plastered on an entry door, records and CDs are spread throughout the room, and an overhead pipe rumbles — a reminder of the college radio station’s dorm basement digs. While many of the sights and sounds in this studio are common in student radio spaces; Herman Melville, James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky tomes aren’t usually on my mental bingo card during college radio station tours.

Doing Radio at a “College of Nerds”

“It’s really a college of nerds,” mused WCFM General Manager Olivia Johnson as we chatted in the station in Williamstown, Massachusetts on a chilly morning in early October. She joked, “We love doing our homework. It’s our biggest passion. And then after that, it’s talking about doing our homework and then talking about our homework. It’s pretty much those three.” Johnson explained that the collection of novels are left over from recent on-air readathons. During these 24-hour broadcasts, station members take turns reading aloud from the chosen book of the year.

The most recent readathon was in December 2024, when WCFM brought The Idiot to the airwaves. Johnson described the experience, telling me, “That’s when the station really is at its creepiest, when you come in for your…4am slot and nobody’s here and you’re…reading Dostoevsky alone to yourself.” She said that Ulysses was her favorite and added that the guy who picked Moby Dick ended up writing his thesis, in part, about the book. “So it really made an impact,” she pointed out.

Connecting with Student Community through Radio

A senior history major, Johnson was first introduced to WCFM her freshman year when she regularly tagged along during a friend’s show. She eventually went through training herself and took on a variety of roles at the station. For her, listening to the campus radio station was a way to get to know other Williams students freshman year, during a time when she was looking to find community. “[It was] really amazing to turn on my radio and hear my friends voices and hear the shows of people who I didn’t know personally but who I’d seen around campus,” she recalled, adding, “It gave me this sort of personal window into the people who I saw every day.” Listening also caused her to feel connected to the “random” DJs behind the mic.

Since WCFM is a freeform station, it allows DJs and hosts to curate shows reflecting their own unique interests and tastes. For Johnson, that is an increasingly important aspect of college radio. “Especially today, especially in a time of…algorithms controlling so much of our content consumption, there’s something really valuable and important about creating…a playlist…for another person, which is actually a big sea of people who are faceless to you,” she explained.

Williams College Radio History: WMS Debuts in 1940

Student radio at Williams dates back to the 1930s, when amateur radio enthusiasts sent broadcasts from their dorm rooms. In 1940, AM carrier current station WMS was launched by students and in 1957 it expanded beyond campus through the addition of a low power class D FM channel at 90.1 FM with call letters WCFM. By the early 1970s, WCFM had increased its wattage to 444 watts and after a series of moves on the dial, shifted to its current frequency of 91.9 FM.

Old photos from WCFM’s past are on display on its newly-designed website, which embraces a vintage computer interface aesthetic, complete with animated gifs. A more elaborate WCFM history collage is on the wall of the broadcast studio, including print-outs of black and white photos of the station and DJs from decades past. Johnson noted that former WCFM General Manager Josh Picoult had collected the photos, which went up before a 2024 “throwback weekend” at the station. Picoult (class of 2024) wrote his senior thesis, “Gas Pipes, Gigahertz, and Grunge: Broadcasting at Williams College, 1940-1998,” about the station’s pre-streaming era. That same semester, he joined us on the Radio Survivor show to discuss that work (listen to podcast #340 for even more back story).

WCFM’s Variety of Freeform Programming

Housed in the basement of a freshman dorm (Prospect House), WCFM has hour-long live shows typically between 8am and 2am, with studio access unavailable (except for during the readathons) between 2am and 6am. At the time of my visit, there were around 130 DJs involved with WCFM and perhaps 20 hours of the weekly schedule were waiting to be filled by newly trained on-air hosts. In the interim, those slots were covered ad hoc by various DJs, included those extending their shows before and after the open hour.

Johnson described the range of programming on WCFM, including “chatty” talk shows amongst friends that tend to play 2000s pop and alternative 1990s music (including off of CDs), programs reflecting the taste of “a large folk contingent” of DJs, and a show run by the Williams College electronic music club in which they play their mixes. The station is also experimenting with four focused hours of specialty programming each week: Open Hour, Study Hall, Noisy Hour, and Anything But English. DJs are invited to pitch their ideas for one-hour shows along these themes each week. The categories were kept purposefully broad to spark open interpretation. Recent shows have dug into new releases and Russian rap and a future show was expected to feature Bulgarian folk.

Physical Music at WCFM

DJs at WCFM have an enviably large library of physical music to draw from. The main library is across the hall from the on-air booth, so WCFM keeps some of the most-played records and CDs close at hand in the studio. When I visited, some favorites (chosen by DJs, music directors and stacks librarians) were housed in wooden cubbies as well as on countertops. Releases from Pere Ubu, Ween, The Strokes, Vashti Bunyan, Live Skull, Elliott Smith, Boy Girl Party, and Flaming Lips were among the stacks and piles of currently-used records and CDs in the studio.

The majority of the music stacks are in a designated CD room and in a multi-room music office, where ongoing reorganization efforts are in progress. Johnson purposefully brings freshmen into the music office during their first few months of training. During meetings they pick out music to play and talk about. She explained that through this process, it “sort of sets a precedent,” so that new DJs will play vinyl. She described one freshman DJ who would lug stacks of records from the library into the studio for his show each week, noting that he’s now on the station’s board. Johnson speculated that maybe a third of the DJs use records at least some of the time, acknowledging that more people use CDs because “they are more familiar with the technology.”

As we toured through the record collection, Johnson pointed out the written reviews on many of the older records, telling me that WCFM staffers used to more consistently write comments and funny notes on album covers, which she enjoys finding in the library. The collection of music is wide-ranging, including 1960s pop, Paul Williams, Public Enemy, Frank Zappa, Dandy Warhols, Meices, and more. Stashed in U.S. mail bins and within rolling library-style shelves are many hidden gems.

WCFM Off-Air Activities, from Concerts to Publications

Off-the air, WCFM hosts concert series, including a semesterly Cov Ball (formerly known as Covercella) during which bands play cover tunes. The station has also produced a number of publications in recent years, including zines, newsletters, and even a mini comic describing WCFM’s illustrious history.

Many of these paper artifacts are on display on the walls of WCFM, including a poster-sized summer newsletter. As we chatted in the hallway before she had to head off to class, Johnson talked about the meaning behind these creations. “We really like having something tangible,” she said. Acknowledging the ephemeral nature of radio, she mused, “We don’t record all of our shows, so a lot of what you do is just gone after you do it…This is kind of the counterpoint to that…having all this physical stuff.”

Thanks to WCFM + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Olivia Johnson for showing me around WCFM and for the engaging conversation about college radio generally. This is my 187th radio station tour report and my 129th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #187: WCFM-FM at Williams College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This year, College Radio Day began for me in the best possible way, with a visit to Middlebury College’s student-run radio station WRMC 91.1 FM in Middlebury, Vermont. From the second that I walked into the station, on the upper floor of the Proctor Dining Hall, I was charmed by the colorful space. Lavender and pink walls lead to a hallway containing a sweet mural painted in the style of “Goodnight Moon.” The artwork depicts a group of headphone-wearing dogs sitting at a poker table, while listening to a WRMC-logo’d radio. The personality-filled walls hinted at the treasures to come throughout my visit.

Touring WRMC on College Radio Day

After settling into a cozy couch in the station’s lobby lounge on a Friday morning in October, I spoke with WRMC’s Co-General Managers Neel Shah and Matthew Held. Both seniors at Middlebury, Shah and Held met soon after arriving on campus as freshmen and quickly bonded over a shared love for music. They went to their first WRMC meeting that year and according to Held, “once we were both there for the first time, we were hooked.” Finding a “welcoming community” at the station, they both got very involved, later joining the board sophomore year as co-social chairs. Last year Shah served as co-Music Director.

Although many people discover their college radio stations after arriving on campus, Shah became enamored with WRMC during his senior year of high school. After he was accepted to Middlebury early decision, he noticed a link to the station on the college website and told me, “I knew this was something that I wanted to do.” He started tuning in to WRMC from his home in Hong Kong and explained that due to the time difference, he ended up listening to early morning and late night shows, which he could listen to in the middle of the day in Hong Kong. “So I got a very strange taste,” for the programming, he noted, because the shows during those hours are often hosted by newer DJs or are simply “weird late night programming.”

Late Night Radio at WRMC

One show, “Freaks and Geeks,” drew him in. The hosts spoke about historical figures, deeming them freaks or geeks before playing songs to coincide with the discussion. Shah thought their show was “the coolest thing in the whole world,” and decided that he “wanted to do something like this.” Since starting at WRMC, Shah has always hosted a late night show so that his parents can tune in live. “They love to listen, and I wouldn’t want them to be shut out,” he explained, adding that he also likes the freedom to play music with swear words, which is another advantage of late night time slots.

Although Held didn’t listen to WRMC prior to arriving on campus, he did know a bit about college radio through friends’ “cool” older brothers who did college radio at University of Texas, Austin. His older brother went to a different college and had friends doing radio, so the concept of student radio was in Held’s mind before his freshman year.

The Allure of College Radio

At Middlebury’s station, both Shah and Held try to foster a welcoming place where everyone who’d like a show, can get on the air. Held said that doing radio is “an outlet for a lot of people” and a “a time that you can be totally alone” and not think about school work and other stressors, adding, “You can go in there…turn the speakers loud, play your music and really let it all out.” Shah also sees the therapeutic value of radio, saying that he loves going to the studio. He describes the studio as sort of a sacred space, telling me, “my one rule for myself is I never do my homework while doing my show.”

Mix of Programming at WRMC

I visited during the first week on the air for all the new WRMC DJs and hosts. Daily training sessions had just wrapped up the day before and were mandatory for everyone at the station because of a new website. Since the on-air staff is made up of around 140 people, that made for a hectic time at WRMC, with folks in and out of the studio for training. The schedule contains about 100 shows, which are generally an hour in length. The vast majority of the programs are hosted by students, but there a few exceptions. Syndicated news program “Democracy Now” airs on weekdays, and a few alumni are still on the air. Additionally, long-time DJ, “The Voodoo Man,” has been on WRMC for decades and currently does a blues/rock show on Saturday mornings.

While touring through WRMC, I spotted a common college radio station sight: the mapping out of the broadcast schedule on an office wall using strips of paper on a cork board. For fall 2025, the array of shows is a fascinating mix. Shah shared a few highlights, including the whimsically-named “Evil boyfriend registry: The pre-raphaelite Brotherhood Show.” He said that he’d been looking forward to tuning in to this new Sunday afternoon show in part because the hosts “make art history sound interesting.” He also mentioned that the schedule expands even further during the summer, when Middlebury College hosts a language immersion program. Students in that program sign a language pledge, promising to communicate only in the language that they are studying. For that reason, WRMC has ended up with summer DJs taking part in that program and that has resulted in shows in a variety of languages, including German, Arabic, and Chinese.

Digging into CD and Vinyl Collection at WRMC

DJs can play music from a large collection of physical music at WRMC, but most of the student DJs use digital music during their shows. Shah noted that the record player is used “very occasionally,” adding that “the needle keeps breaking because people don’t know how to treat it.” This is despite required equipment training. Held explained that DJs planning to use vinyl are given a specific training and said that more people actually use vinyl than CDs. However the CD collection does have some allure, with Shah mentioning that a former station manager did an all-CD show, adding that, “I kind of what to do that this year.” CDs are stored all over the station, but the majority line the hallway and are housed in a huge set of glass-fronted cabinets that resemble built-ins that you might see in a vintage dining room.

On-Air Studio is Full of Life

The on-air studio feels full of life. A set of shelves are provided for WRMC staffers and each of them has a little section where they display little tchotchkes and CDs that express their personalities. It’s adjacent to a window with a view of campus, which makes for a lovely scene. Nearby is a list of the names of previous station executives, as a way for folks to leave their mark. When we arrived in the studio, it was between DJs, yet music from the station’s automation system (“a grab bag of new music” according to Shah) was blasting from the speakers.

A doorway from the studio leads to WRMC’s main recording studio, where musicians record live sessions for broadcast. Although the room had fallen out of use in the wake of COVID, the space has been revamped in the past few years. Additionally, student artists are able to record here. A band from Wesleyan University even requested to record there after seeing videos posted to the WRMC YouTube channel of live recordings. The space is full of instruments and several walls also contain shelves of CDs and vinyl records. A small recording booth is linked to the recording studio.

WRMC History: 1940s Launch of Carrier Current Station WMCRS

Rich in history, WRMC hosted a 75th anniversary of Middlebury radio event last year. The story goes that the first broadcast was out of a chicken coop in 1949. That station, known as WMCRS (Middlebury Campus Radio Service), was an AM carrier current station. In advance of its launch, a story in Middlebury Campus described the set-up as transmitting over “dormitory bell circuits,” with WMCRS expected to reach all of the dorms.

Campus-Only AM Station Changes Call Letters to WRMC in 1952

In 1950, the FCC alerted WMCRS that it was broadcasting beyond the allowed range and the station ceased operations for around six months, returning in April 1951. In 1952, Middlebury Campus reported that the station changed its name to WRMC after receiving a letter from Intercollegiate Broadcasting System stating that “according to international agreements, five-letter call letters cannot be assigned.” The station was still campus-only carrier current broadcasting at 750 AM.

WRMC Awarded FM License and Moves to 91.7 FM in 1968

By December 1967, WRMC had a construction permit to go FM. In the months leading up to this, the station expressed concerns about shifting to a non-commercial license, since as a carrier current station it was free to air advertising. The 10 watt class D station launched over 91.7 FM in early 1968 out of its existing studios in Proctor Hall. It began stereo broadcasts in 1978 and then in the early 1980s, WRMC upgraded its wattage to 100 watts. In 2000 the wattage increased again to 2900 watts and the station was also broadcasting online using RealAudio over a rebuilt website. At some point by the early 1990s, the spot on the dial shifted to 91.1 FM, where WRMC remains today.

With such a storied history, it’s not surprising that there are ghostly rumors surrounding WRMC’s space in Proctor Hall. Shah told me that a long-time DJ has told tales of flickering lights and CDs skipping on specific songs. Apparently these are messages from former DJs that “want to get on the air for one last time.” Held describes them as “benevolent ghosts.”

Thanks to WRMC + Archive of Station Tours

Thanks to Neel Shah, Matthew Held and everyone at WRMC-FM for the wonderful visit. This is my 186th radio station tour report and my 128th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #186: WRMC-FM at Middlebury College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

As I was plotting out my fall vacation to New England, I imagined chilly days, falling leaves and colorful foliage. While hot weather was the norm for much of the trip, the first bit of crispness was in the air for my twilight visit to B-Rad, the student-run college radio station at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont.

Autumn Tour of B-Rad

On the first day of October, B-Rad co-manager Ellie Nowak and I exchanged hellos outside of the Elizabeth Coleman Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) building, steps away from the radio station. The sun was starting to set as we approached the golden hour. Not a soul was around and I was dazzled by the view of orange-leafed trees and lush green grass. Located on a former farm, the 440 acre campus is full of rural charm.

Nowak, a senior, is already feeling wistful about her “last Bennington fall.” She’s been involved with B-Rad since freshman year and continues to do a radio show in addition to her work as a station manager. She’s always had a Saturday night time slot and remarked that she likes having “a ritual like that.” Although the show has taken different forms over the years, she has always had at least one co-host who is also a childhood friend.

Fall 2025 B-Rad Schedule was in the Works

At the time of my visit, B-Rad was in the process of finalizing the fall schedule. Show applications had just been submitted and DJs were about to receive training. With a roster of around 50 participants, B-Rad was expected to have about 32 shows this semester. The station is managed by 3 student board members (Nowak and co-manager Myriel Byfield, plus tech manager Henry Altman) and B-Rad also has a faculty adviser. On such a small campus, with just under 800 students, it’s impressive to see this level of involvement.

Although B-Rad participants are mostly students, B-Rad does have some programs run by community members, including one hosted by a family with elementary-school aged children. Nowak mentioned that a few campus organizations, including the Restorative Justice Collective, had applied for shows. Additionally, a group of international students hosts a program during which they “showcase different elements of their culture from their home country,” with weekly themes focusing on “folklore, festivals…films, music, literature” and more.

Mix of Programming on B-Rad

Nowak ran through the gamut of shows, including everything from genre-focused programs to radio plays to talk shows (including comedy, feminism, and politics-focused) to “D&D and world building” shows. On music shows, DJs play a broad mix of genres, including folk, metal, goth, underground, outlaw country, grindcore, punk, and crankwave. A number of DJs do weekly theme-based shows. Participants have a lot of freedom to play and say what they’d like, especially since the station is online-only. Nowak said that the one rule is “don’t be evil on air and use common sense.” When there isn’t a live host, a mix of music and programming from the B-Rad archives is played through the station’s webstream.

While most B-Rad participants play digital music on their shows, they do have access to a CD player and the station’s collection of physical music. Some DJs do live mixing too. A cabinet is full of CDs, many of which were acquired during the station’s early days when they sent a call-out for CD donations in order to build their library. During Nowak’s freshman year there was a record player at B-Rad. She wasn’t sure what happened to it, but told me, “I love physical media” and “the nostalgia of it all.” She said that she wished that more DJs used the station’s CD player.

Attracting Participants and Listening to B-Rad

Launched as an online station on April 1, 2017, B-Rad remained active through the COVID shutdown, but became a bit more disconnected from campus life. “I really want to help pick that up again,” Nowak said. She told me that she has been working hard to get the word out about the station, adding that “It’s more fun when it’s a big community thing.” Although the station is in a beautiful building, Nowak noted that it’s in a low traffic area compared with other buildings. For that reason, people post flyers and posters for their shows all over campus.

B-Rad also had a table at Bennington’s Club Fair, at which they talked to students about the radio station. Nowak said that a few seniors came to the table and didn’t know much about the station or how to listen, which was a reminder to her about the work still to be done. As we chatted, she checked the station’s stream statistics showing that there were 3 listeners (numbers go up when there’s a live show that hosts are promoting). It was between live shows and she speculated that it could be bots from Germany, noting that sometimes they have bots or perhaps dedicated fans from Finland. It is hard for B-Rad to discern.

B-Rad Launched in 2017

Since its inception in 2017, B-Rad has been housed in a tiny room just off the lobby of the CAPA building. The office-like space has a desk, computer, and audio equipment. A wall is crammed full of drawings and messages that have accumulated over the past few years. Nowak pointed out that the name of her old show was still there and she didn’t have the heart to erase it. In addition to on-air programming, B-Rad has hosted various campus events, game nights and a poster-making party. Nowak also hopes to bring more campus artists to B-Rad listeners and noted that Bennington College has a lot of students who do live DJ mixing.

1952 Launch of Campus Radio Station at Bennington College

While Nowak wasn’t aware of other radio stations on campus prior to B-Rad, I was determined to learn if there were any student radio predecessors. As it turns out, Bennington College has been home to many different student-led radio stations over the years. In 1952, Augusta (“Gus”) Welfer Bartlett started an AM carrier current station as her senior project, back when Bennington was a women’s college. Bartlett had spent a winter working at a radio station in Atlanta and upon her return to campus she decided that “Bennington should have a radio station that would give its talented students a chance to be heard over the air and to have fun at the same time,” reported the Bennington Weekly in December 1950. She started work on the station in spring 1951 and began test broadcasts out of the recording room in Jennings Hall in May 1952.

I was amazed to learn that Bartlett launched the station just a month before her June 1952 graduation AND the expected birth of her child. In a piece for the Bennington College Alumnae Quarterly in 1952, Bartlett talks about what prompted her to start a college radio station. Unsatisfied with the nearby radio offerings, she explains, “…some gentlemen in Schenectady have been producing radio programs for some time, but they never seemed to creep across the state line into Vermont with very much vigor, nor were the programs always what the intellectual ladies craved. So I decided the time had come for the College to have its own station.”

Bartlett built a campus-only AM station, which could be heard within the confines of Bennington College. “Finally, after a year and a half of punching holes, mounting equipment and soldering countless bits of wire, The Thing was completed,” she writes. Spring semester 1952 was a test phase for the station, which opened up for participation from the entire campus the following fall.

WGBB Expands as Campus Activity in Fall 1952

According to an article in the Bennington Biweekly, the campus station fully opened with a launch over 620 AM on November 5, 1952 under the call letters WGBB (named for founder “Gus” and her husband Bob Bartlett). Operated and managed by students, WGBB continued to receive occasional technical assistance from founder Gus Bartlett. The schedule that semester ran for about 3 hours nightly (except Saturdays) and included jazz, opera, light classical music, radio drama, a French disc jockey and dance music programs. “Pleasant taped seminars, workshops, faculty concerts…campus events” and “a full length opera” were in the works, in addition to collaborative programs (including dramas) with WMS at Williams College. A campus news show was to air announcements, including “a service for anyone wanting or offering rides for the weekend.”

By Spring 1953, WGBB had moved to 590 AM, was broadcasting from 7:30pm to 10:30pm, and was airing radio drama, a poetry and prose show, a panel show with faculty and students, seminar recordings, a dance music show, and more. The following fall, around 30 students were part of the staff of WGBB “the Voice of Bennington College.” By spring 1954, the radio station was using call letter WGBN, had become a trial member of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) and had started fundraising in order to move the station due to transmission issues. The move was completed by fall 1954, with WGBN relocating to the Barn from its home in Jennings. At the time, the station was once again enlisting the help of its founder to get its broadcasts operational. Sadly, by spring 1959, IBS reported that WGBN had gone off the air and was dropped from its membership roster.

Students Launch WHIP-FM in 1990s

In the years after the demise of WGBB/WGBN, there was a project called “Bennington College Radio Players” in the late 1980s, followed in the mid-1990s by the creation of the very low power WHIP-FM. Station Manager Wendy Lawrence wrote a profile of WHIP for the winter 1994 issue of Quadrille, saying “WHIP 88.5 FM, Bennington’s own student broadcast, currently operates out of the third floor of Commons with a hand-built transmitter that hangs from a hockey stick. WHIP broadcasts at about one watt and reaches most of the dorms.”

WHIP’s broadcasts were designed to only reach the campus, so it operated without an FCC license. A weekly blurb that ran in Bennington’s College Week newsletter in 1994 notes that “it may be heard anywhere from 88.3 FM to 89.1 FM Monday through Sunday after 7 p.m. If you don’t get it in. Find a friend who does…” WHIP later hosted a rave and within a few years was the largest student organization at Bennington.

Some time in the 2004-2005 academic year, WHIP seemed to have ceased operations. In a March, 2007 piece in Bennington Free Press, former WHIP participant Luna Galassini writes of the station being a “loosely defined campus club” in fall 2004 and cites “student apathy and mismanagement” taking a toll on its broadcasts. By Fall 2005, WHIP was not active and Galassini hoped to revive it over FM, yet was met with resistance.

Radio and Podcasting Proposals Lead to Internet Station Circa 2007

However, a faculty member’s spring 2006 proposal for a radio and podcasting program and a student proposal for an internet station in fall 2006 reinvigorated discussions. The old WHIP studio was unavailable as its space in the Commons was considered “condemned,” so the student-run internet station was offered a room in the Fels quad. “Bennington Radio Due to Make Waves,” reads a March 2007 headline in student newspaper Before the End of the World.

Details of the station’s debut are absent, but an October 2009 issue of Bennington Free Press contains an ad for streaming radio station WBEN – The Triangle, with a Bennington College URL. A few pages later in the issue, an article about the “deserted” upstairs Commons notes that “a still vibrant radio station lives on. The author describes the space, writing, “Decorated with patches of what seems to be ’90s grunge band glory, an oft-used couch falling apart in a corner and witty sharpie graffiti from students long gone, there exists a spirit of banter and intimacy in the room that is not often found on our crowded campus today.” I wasn’t able to find further details about this phase of radio at Bennington, but flashing forward another 7 years or so, B-Rad made its online debut in 2017.

Thanks to B-Rad + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Ellie Nowak for the tour of B-Rad and also thanks to Dean of the Crossett Library at Bennington College, Oceana Wilson, for research assistance. I cannot believe my luck, as Wilson had just recently digitized the 1950s student newspapers, which are a goldmine of information about early radio at Bennington College. This is my 185th radio station tour report and my 127th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #185: B-Rad at Bennington College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

One of my favorite things about tuning in to terrestrial radio is hearing unlikely juxtapositions as stations fade in and out of each other. With religious radio covering much of the left side of the dial in some communities, there are often unintentionally bizarre mash-ups of faith-based messages with the sometimes edgier music and lyrics of college radio. As I drove towards Lewiston, Maine listening to 91.5 FM on a Monday afternoon in October, I was expecting to catch Bates College radio station WRBC, but instead heard a cheery tune about heaven and a “divine maker.” The last lyrics that I could discern were “God’s word endures forever,” before the music got choppy and then disappeared into silence.

Soon a DJ came on the microphone and said, “You Just heard ‘The Hairstyle of the Devil by Momus.'” The DJ took a call from a childhood friend, for which listeners could only catch one side of the conversation. But in my rental car, I was also hearing a nearby religious radio station (which showed up on the car’s audio dashboard display as “91.5 Jesus #1”) fading in and out in “call and response” style as the college radio DJ from WRBC told a story about the friend. After the DJ cued up a song from the Cocteau Twins, I was charmed by the full arc of the moment, as the music of one of my favorite bands emanating from the car speakers.

Touring WRBC at Bates College

Hearing that bit of unplanned radio art over WRBC piqued my curiosity as I headed towards the Bates College student-run radio station for a tour. A short time later, I entered WRBC 91.5 FM‘s basement lair through the back entrance of an old house that had been converted to a campus building. I felt like I was descending into a secret clubhouse, full of music and memorabilia from the station’s 67-year history.

I was greeted by Olivia Torrington (WRBC’s Community Liaison and Digital Media head) and WRBC co-General Managers Matt Riseman and Brett Karpf. We had a chat and tour before everyone headed to a station board meeting. As it was towards the start of the academic year, WRBC was in the midst of various organizational projects, including revamping and cleaning up the station and training new participants.

While wandering through the funky station space, it was impossible to ignore signs of WRBC’s storied past. A cozy lounge area is where I began my tour. Seated on what looked like a college-issued dorm couch, I had a view of a collection of colorful vintage chairs (some scored at yard sales), graffiti-covered walls, and a jam-packed physical music library full of CDs and records.

Past the record library is a hallway with another couch, a bathroom (The Pee Studio), office area, a former production studio, more storage space, and the on-air studio. Band and radio stickers are plastered on various surfaces and one wall is decorated with a collage of vintage clippings and photos representing the history of radio at Bates College.

Campus Radio Station WVBC Launches in 1951

Debuting over FM in 1958, WRBC had its origins as 640 AM campus-only carrier current station WVBC (for “Voice of Bates College”), which launched in Chase Hall in 1951. From the very beginning the station was met with great enthusiasm, with 120 on staff in the fall semester in 1951, leading up to the station’s launch that November. By the following semester, they had a growing record collection, roster of regular shows, and even did a “continuous 13-hour broadcast…in which they kept students informed about classes and the effects of [a] storm,” according to a February 27, 1952 article in The Bates Student.

WVBC was not without technical difficulties. In April 1952, an article in the Bates Student joked, “It is now taken for granted that the left turntable is subject to extreme fits of temperament and will often refuse to comply with the requirements for records of different RPM. The present policy is to ‘let it go’ if the song is relatively unfamiliar and will not sound too farfetched when speeded up or slowed down a bit.”

Student Radio Goes FM with Launch of WRJR in 1958; Call Letters Later Change to WRBC

In 1958, the student radio group at Bates received an license for 10 watt station WRJR 91.5 FM, with test programs beginning that fall out of the basement of Pettigrew Hall. WRJR officially launched in October, 1958. As AM was the norm at the time and not all students owned FM radios, WRJR worked to install converters “for the remaining students with AM sets,” according to an April 22, 1959 article in the Bates Student. Circa 1981-1982 the station’s call letters were changed to WRBC.

WRBC in 2025

Today, WRBC continues to be a completely student-run station. It has been located in its current home, the former Bates Alumni House, since 1978. While it occupies the basement, the upstairs rooms are used as office space for faculty. Programming runs from around 8am to midnight, with about 130 active DJs and around 70 shows. There are approximately 12 DJs from outside the campus community, some of whom have been on the air at WRBC for 20 to 30 years.

WRBC’s Large Physical Music Library

WRBC has a large collection of vinyl records and CDs that are stored in its main library room, in hallway shelves and in the on-air studio. WRBC Community Liaison Olivia Torrington pointed out that most of the CDs have handwritten reviews on them and we noticed a few that were so old that the stickers were falling off as the adhesive had dried out. The collection is “loosely” organized alphabetically and by genre and the plan is to have new station interns working to get the library in better shape.

I was told that the vinyl records aren’t used as much as they’d like, in part because the turntable needles are currently broken. Community DJs are more likely to use CDs and vinyl. And occasionally students play physical music for the “novelty.” Although new DJs are trained on the audio equipment, the perception is that playing digital music is easier.

DJs Play a Wide Mix of Music at WRBC

While I was there a couple of students were wrapping up their team show for the evening. Between on-air banter, they played music, including a Beatles song. Madonna’s “Material Girl” was playing as I left the station, while later in the evening DJs were discussing the new Taylor Swift album, which had just been released. At other times that I’ve tuned in, I’ve heard a range of genres, including soul, rock, hip hop, electronic and pop. Other shows on the schedule dig in to jazz, blues, reggae, and more. When there isn’t a live DJ, an automated mix of music plays thanks to the station’s “Robo DJ.”

Like the rest of the station, the studio is full of artifacts from the past, starting with the sticker-covered door. A spiral-bound WRBC Dialogue Book from 2020 was on the counter, containing notes and drawings from DJs. A collection of carts with recorded station promotional spots (circa 1994-1997) are perched high on a shelf. Typed PSAs in plastic sleeves are available for DJs to read on-air. There is also a folder of CDs labelled “OND,” and posted instructions note that if Robo DJ isn’t working, one should play one of the overnight disks in lieu of the automated music mix. Audio equipment in the studio includes a mixing board, turntables, CD players, computer, microphones and headphones.

WRBC Events include Trivia Night

In addition to their on-air activities, WRBC hosts events and special programming throughout the year, including a Halloween Bash, concerts and trivia nights. One wall of the music library has various sets of hash marks that were used to keep score during a past trivia night. Callers would contact the station with answers to trivia questions and station staff tallied up the answers on the wall.

As we finished up the tour, WRBC co-General Manager Matt Riseman summed up what makes the station’s home so great. “It’s unique. It’s WRBC. You enter the space and you become a part of it. It’s awesome,” he mused, adding, “We are trying our best to keep Bates weird.”

Thanks to WRBC + Full List of Station Tours

Thanks to everyone at WRBC for the fun tour of their magical radio space at Bates College. This is my 184th radio station tour report and my 126th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #184: WRBC-FM at Bates College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In 2009, a University of Denver Magazine profile of the school’s student radio station bore the headline, “The nine lives of DU radio.” It’s a fitting description for the ebb and flow of radio activity on the Colorado campus, where there have been at least 7 distinct stations since the 1940s. The current college radio station, KXDU, was founded in spring 2022 (see their archived website from 2023 in the Wayback Machine) and began streaming broadcasts in the 2023-2024 school year.

Touring College Radio Station KXDU

Tucked into a small fishbowl-like room on the third floor of the Community Commons building, KXDU’s wall of windows look out over an undergraduate student lounge space. During my visit on October 23, 2025, students drifted in and out of the lounge to play pool, study or take a break. On that warm autumn afternoon, KXDU Audio Technician Grady Dionne and DJ Natalie Hultquist chatted with me about the station that they call home. Dionne is a senior and has been with KXDU since freshman year, whereas Hultquist is a brand new transfer student and had just joined the station.

The compact radio station space is minimally stocked with just what KXDU needs to get broadcasts out to listeners. There’s a desk, mixing board, computer, headphones, a few side tables, colorful chairs, and an ottoman. A collection of large posters tucked against a wall are reminders of the variety of events hosted by KXDU over the past few years. One thing that is absent is physical music.

Without a Website, KXDU Communicates through Instagram

With no music library, KXDU relies on DJs to supply their own music. Additionally, there’s no functional website at the moment. The story goes that someone left the station and they lost the domain; subsequently the site hasn’t been updated in two years. Without a website, KXDU uses its Instagram page to get the word out about shows and provide a link to its stream. KXDU members have also been providing music coverage on their Medium blog.

Events, Concerts and Tiny Dorm Concerts

Despite the station’s modest digs, KXDU makes a big impression with its events, shows, and live music sessions. Truly a community-focused endeavor, KXDU produces concerts featuring campus bands, DJs at events, and curates a series of live sessions highlighting student musicians. These Tiny Dorm Concerts began before KXDU had even launched a streaming radio station. The beautifully shot and edited live sets feature artists from University of Denver and are recorded in musicians’ dorm rooms or residences, both on and off-campus. An archive of 12 episodes of Tiny Dorm Concerts can be viewed on the KXDU YouTube page.

Campus Bands are Embraced by the University of Denver station

Dionne is in charge of all of KXDU’s audio and video equipment and is very involved with Tiny Dorms. Immersed in music as a creator, student and professional, he is studying jazz guitar and audio engineering while also playing in bands and doing sound for shows. He described the local music scene as being very active with at least 10 to 15 bands on campus creating music influenced by pop, folk, and indie. He noted that shoegaze is also “pretty big” at the moment and said that he plays in a shoegaze band (Clove) and a post-punk band (Exhaler).

Spreading the Word about KXDU through Shows

In part because the concept of the radio station began before there was a live stream, KXDU focused initially on doing events. And these community-oriented events continue today. Dionne explained that events are also the best way that they attract new station members. Just before my visit, KXDU had hosted a house show, themed “indie sleaze,” and flyers were plastered all around campus to promote it.

Another big production is KXDU’s Spring Send Off music festival. Held at the end of the school year, it’s an all day event featuring 6 to 8 campus bands. The most recent Spring Send Off was in June 2025 and drew a few hundred attendees. Dionne said that the station typically works with another campus group for the festival and last spring they worked with the food pantry, even collaborating on merchandise.

Fall 2025 Programming Rolling out at KXDU

As far as the radio side of KXDU, the station and its new officers were just getting started for the school year when I visited. Around 20 people attend weekly club meetings and several hundred (some KXDU alumni) follow KXDU activities through their Slack channel. Programming is slowly rolling out, with around 8 DJs/hosts currently doing typically 2-hour shows on the KXDU stream. Dionne said that as new folks discover the club, they hope to expand their schedule to 5 days a week, but for the moment the KXDU program schedule is limited to Mondays and Tuesdays from 10am to 6pm.

Hultquist, along with a friend, just hosted her first show on KXDU. She told me that they plan to do themed shows every week and decided that with their inaugural show they would focus on playing music that they “grew up on” and the music that inspired their current music taste. She said it was fun to also send links to their families so that they could tune in. In speaking about future shows, Hultquist said that she planned to do a Halloween show and hoped to also do one about unrequited or “one-sided” love.

Dionne chimed in that he likes to play new music on his program. He’s done jazz shows and a number of thematic shows, including one for Valentine’s Day. While many DJs do their programs from the studio, Dionne does his from off-site since he has a fully outfitted home studio. Even though KXDU doesn’t have the tools to play physical music, Dionne will play vinyl records and CDs while DJing from home.

Legacy of Student Radio at University of Denver

Although KXDU is a brand new organization as of a few years ago, its call letters hearken back to one of the many previous student radio stations at University of Denver. The full radio backstory was unknown to the current staffers who I met with, but Dionne mentioned that he thought there had been an FM station in the 1980s and that the student club started up again in the early 2000s and then died out. Luckily there is some written history about radio on campus and other clues can be found in defunct station websites and social media accounts.

AM Carrier Current Station KVDU Launches in 1947

A 2009 article in University of Denver Magazine points to AM carrier current station KVDU, which launched in 1947, as the first student station on campus. Lauded as “station of the month” in a March 1968 profile in College Radio magazine, KVDU at the time had 50 staff members and broadcast for 70 hours a week over carrier current at 670 AM. After more than 20 years of campus-only broadcasts, KVDU expanded to FM with the launch of KCFR in 1970, in order to reach a broader audience. Within the same school year, KVDU ceased its carrier current broadcasts. The following year, KCFR hired professional staff to run the station and “in 1984, KCFR became an independent community radio station — one of two stations that founded the Colorado Public Radio network,” according to the University of Denver Magazine piece.

Radio Redefined on Campus in the 1970s and 1980s with KAOS

After the demise of carrier current station KVDU and the loss of student leadership at KCFR, a few other student radio stations appeared at University of Denver. These included KAOS from the early 1970s through at least the mid-1980s. A 1979 yearbook photo bears the motto “KAOS: The Voice of Centennial Towers 670 AM.” In 1986, a yearbook article, “Crisis and Rebirth: The Fall and Rise of the Student Media,” mentioned challenges at all of the campus media organizations, including KAOS. It cited “inconsistent operations, considerable requests for funding and little staff training.” Another accounting of station history includes reference to the call letters KEGH, but the only item that I could find related to this was a 1982 headline in the DU student newspaper, The Denver Clarion, reading, “KEGH Future Unsure After Total Staff Loss.”

Revival of KVDU as an Internet Station in 2001

In 2001, KVDU “The Pioneer Sound” made its debut as an internet-only station. Its archived website reads, “KVDU is the University of Denver’s Internet radio station. The entirely student-run station was launched on February 15th, 2001 after nearly two decades without student radio on the University of Denver campus. The broadcast originates on a Shoutcast server in the Driscoll University Center.”

KVDU Changes Name to KXDU in 2012

KVDU seemed to ebb and flow for a few years, had a new website and social media presence (check out its old MySpace page) starting around 2009, and released a live music compilation in 2010. In February 2012, KVDU changed its call letters to KXDU and had dreams of broadcasting over AM. After about a year of inactivity, another KXDU revival was organized in February 2014 (view its old website on the Wayback Machine) and seemed to be active through early 2016. It’s unclear for how long University of Denver was without a student radio station until the current iteration of KXDU was founded in 2022.

Thanks to KXDU + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Grady Dionne and Natalie Hultquist for the tour of KXDU. It’s inspiring to see the station’s embrace of the University of Denver music culture, while continuing the long tradition of radio on campus. This is my 183rd radio station tour report and my 125th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #183: KXDU at University of Denver appeared first on Radio Survivor.

A sentence on the KRCX website, “Regis University is home to Denver’s oldest college radio station,” piqued my interest and led to a journey not only through the radio station, but down many archival rabbit holes in search of more information. The story goes that the station began as a “dorm room shortwave broadcast,” but details of this mysterious beginning are absent from accounts of the station’s history.

Touring KRCX

Within KRCX’s home in the basement of Clarke Hall, there are indicators that hint at the various stages and iterations of the long-time student-run station. Banners, stickers, show posters, awards and other ephemera reveal that the station held several spots on the dial, including 93.9 FM, 101.5 FM and 1530 AM. Posters and stickers from the 1990s and early 2000s cover various walls and doors, while shelves continue to house CDs. Older media and equipment dispersed around the station include records, mini discs, floppy discs, and a reel-to-reel machine. 

One wall of the office is decorated with vinyl records and covers. Discarded CDs had been smashed into bits for crafting sessions in the past, including some that were used to create disco balls at a station craft night and others that were incorporated into four panels that spell out the station’s call letters K-R-C-X.

As KRCX General Manager Magdalena Tapia toured me around the station on October 23, 2025, they pointed out the “history on the walls” of the station’s three rooms as well as various mysterious undated artifacts, including photos, event posters and a phone message log book. Tapia wasn’t sure how long the station had been around, but had been trying to sleuth out details about some of the objects floating around the station. Noting that Regis dates back to the 1800s, Tapia told me that Clarke Hall, home to KRCX, is rumored to be haunted. KRCX participants have shared tales of hearing things late at night and a former manager was so spooked that he would sleep at the station rather than venturing out the door in the wee hours.

While I didn’t uncover details about ghostly denizens, I was able to piece together a bit more about the trajectory of radio at Regis. As is the case on many campuses, student radio at Regis has operated under many different names and in a variety of locations over the years.

Early Days of Radio at Regis College in Denver

In 1921, a wireless receiving set was installed at Regis College “partly as an experiment,” with plans in place to install a sending set and begin radio courses in 1922. According to a radio column in the campus paper on June 1, 1922, the receiving set had picked up “broadcasting programs, concerts, league scores, news digest, weather reports, and radio concerts.”

The earliest mentions of student-led radio endeavors that I could find at Regis were a yearbook entry for a radio club in the 1940 Ranger and news of an amateur radio station that same year. “Hall Harbors Ham Radio Operator,” reads a headline from January 12, 1940 in Regis College student newspaper The Brown and Gold. The article profiles junior Bob Kelley, who had installed an amateur radio set in his dorm room on the second floor of Carroll Hall. Using the call W9QVZ, he was “operating on the 40 meter shortwave length” and was sending messages by code. At the time it was expected that within a month he would be able to “converse with the other Hams by voice also.” A December 5, 1940 article in the Denver Catholic Register stated that Bob Kelley was running the “first and only ‘ham’ radio station to be installed in Carroll hall” at Regis College.

Beyond the amateur radio work, the Regis College Radio department produced radio plays in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Radio Council. A Christmas play aired over KOA in 1939 and in 1941 Regis College produced eight radio dramas about the history of the Jesuits as part of a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Catholic order. In 1943, as word of carrier current was spreading among colleges, Private Thomas W. Donaven of Regis College wrote in to QST magazine asking if there were any carrier current stations in Denver.

New Radio Club and Carrier Current Station KREG Launch at Regis College in the 1950s

By the 1953-1954 school year there was a new radio club at Regis College, whose purpose was “the training of those interested in radio announcing.” The 1954 Regis Ranger profile of the club states that the club “hopes in the future to build a Campus Radio Station.” Soon after, campus-only carrier current station KREG was launched at Regis. By the 1958-1959 school year it was broadcasting from DeSmet Hall, had a roster of 30 DJs and had conducted high profile interviews, including one with Hollywood star Mitzi Gaynor. 

And by 1960, KREG’s programming was piped into the Student Center. Interestingly, at the time KREG had implemented a “new policy of playing high quality music which benefits the college mind rather than the controversial form of rock and roll.” This switch aligned with a student opinion survey that “indicated a definite distaste for rock and roll.” The official yearbook photos of the station in 1960 show the all male staff sporting suits and ties. By 1961, the station had grown to around 50 participants and started renting records to students and campus organizations. Despite these accomplishments, KREG drifted away at some point in the 1960s.

Radio Revival with KRCR’s Debut in 1969

A new station, KRCR, launched at Regis in October 1969, “after nine years and many futile attempts,” according to a profile in the 1970 Ranger. The piece claims that this new station was “conceived and founded” in spring 1961. Unlike its predecessor, the newly minted KRCR played rock music, along with popular music, jazz, soul, news and sports. In the early 1970s, KRCR embraced rock and roll and pushed the boundaries by airing “sarcastic sports commentary” and learning into “personality radio” with DJs like “The Stoned Ranger.” The marijuana jokes continued and by the 1977-78 school year KRCR 66 AM dubbed itself “Reefer Rock Radio,” after once again picking “itself out of the ashes.” Around this time it was broadcasting out of the Student Center.

1980s Name Change to KRCX

During the 1985-1986 school year, KRCR changed its name to KRCX and was broadcasting to the dining hall and the three dorms over 660 AM. The station had a big listening audience during meal time and there were aspirations for “transmitting to all of Denver on an FM station,” according to the entry in the 1986 Regis Ranger. However, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, KRCX suffered a multitude of issues, including a mixing board fire and questions about finances and oversight. The station’s budget was frozen and the club was suspended. By the fall of 1992, KRCX was given a new advisor and was reorganized by the school’s communications board. At this point it was broadcasting from the basement of the O’Connell dorm, where it had moved circa 1990-1991. It continued its carrier current transmissions, bopping between 660, 580 and 590, while holding on to dreams of FM. Another move circa 1994 brought the station to the Media Center in the basement of the Student Center, from which KRCX broadcast an alternative music format.

KRCX expands to FM in 1999

By the 1998-1999 school year, KRCX was still on carrier current, moving from 1490 to 1530 on the AM dial. However, excitement was high for an even greater accomplishment, with KRCX beginning 101.5 FM broadcasts that reached one mile around the campus in spring 1999. The 1999 Regis Ranger yearbook wrote that because of this, KRCX “became Denver’s first and only F.M. college radio station.” By the 1999-2000 school year, there was growing interest in the station from students, the outside community and record labels.

The number of DJs increased to around 70, plus 8 student staff members. Within a few years, KRCX was also online and added streaming audio beginning circa 2005. Campus-only broadcasts continued over AM and FM and KRCX also expanded onto campus cable TV around this time. Within a few years, the spot on the dial moved to 93.9 FM and by 2009 KRCX was earning accolades from CMJ and covering the Democratic Convention.

2012-2013 Move to Clarke Hall, Exploration of LPFM

During the 2012-2013 school year KRCX moved yet again, landing in the basement of Clarke Hall, where it continues to broadcast from today. Around this time, KRCX hoped to expand its reach off campus. It applied for a new low power FM (LPFM) license in 2013 and was awarded a construction permit for a station at 97.9 FM in 2014. That permit was cancelled in September 2017.

KRCX in 2025

Flash forward to 2025 and KRCX is in another phase of re-building. The student-run station has a small group of participants on work-study. General Manager Magdalena Tapia is a senior and has been involved with KRCX since freshman year. Initially learning about KRCX at an activity fair, Tapia joked that the draw was the promise of “free pizza” and a job. Tapia described the 2024-2025 academic year as a “rocky time,” with a series of technical challenges resulting in the station’s webstream being offline.

Tech Challenges and Post-COVID Return

Although the audio of the KRCX stream can now be heard in the KRCX basement studio, transmissions cannot be heard anywhere else. The station computer runs through a cycle of 46,000 songs and a mix of promotional announcements. DJs can interrupt that mix to do live programming, even though it remains confined to the station space. Tapia explained that while their broadcasts have been silenced, KRCX continues to do campus events “above ground.” This latest round of technical issues stem in part from an August 2019 cyberattack on Regis University, that took down websites and systems on campus. A few months later, the coronavirus pandemic led to further disruptions, ultimately hampering the growth of KRCX and leading to a “slump,” according to Tapia. As is the case on many campuses, student organizations went through a period of transition after students returned following the easing up of COVID restrictions.

2025 Revamp of KRCX

Tapia explained that this semester they are working to “revamp” KRCX by troubleshooting its tech issues while continuing to spread the word about the station through campus events. They expressed enthusiasm about the “passionate” group of participants who are keeping the station active through the creation of website content and events. The station’s blog is full of concert coverage, music reviews, music history, and more. Recent events have included a battle of the bands, karaoke nights, a Halloween open mic night, crafting sessions on the campus quad focused on coloring and kite-making, a Valentine’s Friendship Bingo night, and more.

Although KRCX wasn’t streaming at the time of my visit, the station did have the ability to play CDs and digital music. Sometimes they do receive vinyl records and CDs in the mail and Tapia said that in a period when they are flooded with digital music submissions, it’s exciting to be sent “a physical things that we can keep in the station,” as opposed to a “file that can get deleted.” As we traveled from room to room we spotted a package of vinyl records that had just been mailed to KRCX and Tapia said, “I wish we had a record player.”

Reminiscing about the time when KRCX could be heard on campus, Tapia talked about the thrill of having artists in the studio to talk about their work. Staffers have received media passes to concerts and one memorable experience was having indie band Yam Haus play on campus. Following that event, the band reached out directly to the station to offer them tickets, saying “we remember you.”

Thanks to KRCX + Archive of Station Tours

Many thanks to Magdalena Tapia of KRCX for the tour! This is my 182nd radio station tour report and my 124th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #182: KRCX at Regis University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

One of the first things that I noticed when I arrived at WMPG-FM in Portland, Maine was a familiar-looking three-dimensional grey cardboard sign perched in the lobby window. Hidden behind a chair and near stacks of bumper stickers, the sign is on my hypothetical radio station tour bingo card. Sent by musician Leo Blais many years ago, the hand-made WMPG sign has counterparts at college and community radio stations all over the United States.

It wasn’t surprising to find this independent radio staple at the community radio station at the University of Southern Maine, since the rest of the station is full of funky ephemera. WMPG’s headquarters on the ground floor and in the basement of a former house (the student paper, The Free Press, is upstairs) is outfitted like a typical college radio station. Sticker-covered walls, shelves packed with CDs and vinyl records, and WMPG tchotchkes make for a colorful space from which to do radio.

WMPG’s Early Days of Campus-Only Broadcasts

With humble beginnings in 1970 as pirate FM station WGOR broadcasting from a dorm room in Gorham, Maine (listen to an interview with founder Howard Allen), WMPG-FM operates today on 90.9 FM. The station has three full-time staff members and an active volunteer roster of more than 200 community members and students, around 110 to 120 of whom are on the air as programmers. The original station operated without a license as it broadcast to a very small radius on campus at 107 FM. With university approval, WGOR applied for an FM license and began provisional broadcasts of WMPG in 1973.

Documentary Puts WMPG in the Spotlight

Fifty-five years after its initial dorm room transmissions, WMPG has been receiving worldwide attention thanks to a Tom Bell-directed documentary focusing on the story of this vibrant community radio station. The short film about WMPG, An Extraordinary Place, has been screening at numerous events and festivals. Days before my visit, it received an honorable mention at the Love and Hope International Film Festival in Barcelona. It was up for “Best Documentary” at that festival and has been garnering awards at other festivals. A few days later, the film aired on public television in Maine, with a YouTube debut expected soon. With an emphasis on “the power of human connections,” the film depicts “the relationships among the station’s volunteers and its radio audience…through the lens of love of music,” according to its producers.

College Radio Station that Embraces Community

Although I have yet to see the film, I was able to get a sense of the strong community and the love for music at WMPG during my visit. Program Director David Rogers-Berry shared with me the state of the station while leading me on a tour on a busy Tuesday afternoon in October. We talked about how WMPG is a bit of a hybrid station as it has historically drawn many of its programmers from the broader community. He said that over the past few years there has been both a mandate and a concerted effort to increase student involvement and get new voices on the air. As we chatted, numerous students were milling about the station shadowing DJs and having meetings with station staff. And Rogers-Berry noted that it hasn’t been that difficult attracting more students to the station, especially post-pandemic, during which he’s noticed a lot of “momentum” at WMPG.

Freeform Radio Station that Supports Local Music

A freeform station, WMPG is trying to have more of a “curatorial voice,” according to Rogers-Berry. He pointed out a section of new music assembled by the music department. The collection of CDs and vinyl records featured a mix of genres, including ambient experimental and a compilation of rare synth wave from Eastern Europe from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The music director notes on that release that it is “unknown and unstreamable!” While DJs are not required to play new music, this section is a way to encourage programmers to dig in to not only new and local music, but to also explored some gems being highlighted from the station archives.

Another way that WMPG emphasizes new and local music is through the long-running show Local Motives. Every Wednesday evening an artist/bands comes to the studio to play a 35 to 40 minute live session. 2025 has been particularly active for the show, with nearly 50 bands having come through by the time that I visited in October. Over the summer they also experimented with setting up bands to play just outside the station, on the driveway adjacent to the WMPG building. A snake was passed through a window to the set-up outside and these sets were dubbed “Live from the Drive.” One goal was to attract an in-person audience for those sessions.

WMPG’s Youth Radio Program and Remote Broadcasts

Another interesting and long-running program (since 1994!) at WMPG is Blunt Youth Radio, a Thursday evening show that features young people from the community. A free after school program, Blunt Youth Radio, invites Maine high school students to produce radio and podcasts from a dedicated studio at WMPG.

Live music in the studio and the youth radio programming are a couple of ways that WMPG brings the community in to the station. On the flip side, WMPG also does events in the local area, including live Friday night broadcasts, Freaky Fridaze, from various venues. For October 2025, WMPG DJs played music live from a craft brewery in Portland.

Record Library Reorganization in the Works

Like many of the stations that I visited this fall, WMPG is in the midst of reorganizing its physical music collection. While there was music throughout the station, the basement is home to a large media library of CDs and vinyl. On the way down to the packed space, I was charmed by a door nearly covered with radio station stickers. As an aficionado of radio station stickers, I appreciate the effort to consolidate all the radio stickers in one place. I was told that they were mostly collected at NFCB (National Federation of Community Broadcasters) conferences over the years. Impressively, stickers spanned the entire United States, representing stations from places far from Maine, including Alaska, Hawaii, California, Washington, Wisconsin, and more.

Rogers-Berry explained a bit about the current CD reorganization project, telling me that WMPG is working to cull about 60% of the CD collection. He said that in the past the library was filed chronologically and in an effort to save space, CD jewel cases were replaced with thinner sleeves. As the years went by, it became clear to WMPG that the thinner cases made finding music quite difficult. So now, the plan is to bring back jewel cases so that the library is browse-able. He told me that by reducing the size of the collection, the desire is to have a “curated” and “usable” library as opposed to one that is “comprehensive.” Station volunteers with expertise in various genres are doing the decision-making regarding what music is culled. “We’re going from a museum to a library,” noted Station Manager Jim Rand, as we chatted in his office at the end of my visit.

Although a portion of the CD collection is leaving the station, WMPG is working to preserve other objects and ephemera related to the station’s history. Rand shared with me a scrapbook created by WGOR/WMPG founder Howard Allen, which was full of amazing photos, clippings and artifacts from the early days of student radio at University of Southern Maine (USM). Other materials have been preserved on campus through the USM Digital Commons. As we spoke, he pointed to the an early WMPG bumper sticker that reads “Maine’s radio oasis,” which was affixed to his office door.

Thanks to WMPG + Full List of Station Tours

Many thanks to WMPG for the tour! This is my 181st radio station tour report and my 123rd college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #181: WMPG-FM at University of Southern Maine appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“Walk to the front between the two large turrets!” read the text message from WZLY historian Berit Raines, directing me to the entrance of Billings Hall, a gothic 1904 building that is home to the Wellesley College radio station as well as various student services and administrative offices. While walking across the lushly landscaped campus on a crisp autumn morning, I felt like I was stepping back in time and it was a fitting introduction to student-run organization that is steeped in history and traditions.

Wellesley College Radio Dates Back to 1942

One of the first carrier current stations at a historically women’s college, WBS (for Wellesley Broadcasting System), launched on April 20, 1942 as a campus-only AM station in Wellesley, Massachusetts. This was very early days for carrier current, with organized efforts beginning with the launch of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) in 1940. Prior to that time, Brown University students created their own system before helping to found IBS in order to assist other radio clubs in building stations. Women’s colleges like Wellesley were part of those efforts.

After decades of campus-only AM broadcasts, WBS worked to expand its potential listening audience in the 1970s. This eventually resulted in the 1976 launch of class D station WZLY on 91.5 FM, which continues to be the station’s spot on the dial. When I visited, the FM signal wasn’t up and running, but it was hoped that the technical issues would soon be resolved. Signs of the station’s past were sprinkled throughout their funky basement space, which WZLY has inhabited since 1983. Flyers celebrating the station’s 80th anniversary included vintage photos, and an old mixing console dating from the carrier current era was propped near the on-air studio.

Wellesley College Traditions at WZLY

WZLY has unique traditions and even slang that ties in with the culture at Wellesley. Several hoops were attached to lights near a purple stole decorated with a screen-printed WZLY logo. Graduating seniors participate in a hoop rolling contest, which is a ritual dating back to the founding of Wellesley in the 1800s. Raines mentioned that different campus organizations have their own hoops, which members can use. Stoles are worn during commencement as a symbol of participation in various groups, including the radio station.

Preserving Material Culture at WZLY

Telling me that the station was “kind of in flux,” Raines explained that WZLY had just begun broadcasting for the semester the week before my visit. As the term was getting underway various projects were in the works, including one to organize and re-shelve the large library of CDs. Raines was recently elected to the historian role and at WZLY that executive board (E-board) position is responsible for both creating and preserving “material culture” for the organization. Some of the related projects include making a broadcast schedule poster, doing a senior photo shoot and creating graduation stoles. The station historian is also responsible for bringing station-produced items to the college archives every year.

I was pleased to also hear that WZLY has collaborated with the archives at Wellesley College and has drawn inspiration for current promotional items from historical materials. At Wellesley College the term “spam” is used to describe posters, flyers and zines created to promote student organizations and departments. Raines explained that some of these items are stamped with an expiration date and posted on cork boards around campus, which are called “spam boards.” In a recent spam-making party, members of the station crafted WZLY-themed decorations to post on their dorm room doors as a way of showing pride in their affiliation with the college radio station.

DIY Promotional Materials and Messages on the WZLY Walls

Handmade WZLY program guides and zines were in various places throughout the station, including a recent mini-zine that was comprised of flyers that DJs made for their shows during a spam-making workshop. I was told that the station attracts an especially crafty group of folks and that creativity extends throughout WZLY’s physical space. Messages and drawings are inked on walls and ceilings and graduating seniors typically leave their mark with heartfelt parting words. Raines plans to scan the walls in order to create a preservable digital representation, especially since other campus spaces have lost similarly graffitied walls after renovations. Raines explained that, “I feel like it’s one of the most significant visual aspects of the space. I don’t think it would be the studio without the writing on the walls.”

Touring WZLY’s Charming Basement Space

Upon descending into the basement digs of WZLY, one arrives at a large open area with a cluster of couches, comfy chairs, sticker-covered tables, and shelves of CDs. A low ledge provides more seating and a step up to a narrow stage-like area where the hoops and stole were displayed. Off to the side is a mysterious small door and graffiti next to it reads “sex cave.”

From that main lobby-like area a few steps take one down to two studios – a training studio (studio B) and the on-air booth (studio A). Between the studios is a narrow tech room with windows overlooking both studios. Outside the studios are more shelves of CDs and some vinyl records. A treehouse-like listening nook is nearby and one can climb a short ladder to ascend into the carpeted mini loft. Old copies of the WZLY program guide, original handmade collaged flyers and music magazines are stashed away in this area so that station members wanting to take a break can peruse the collection of reading material.

Handmade “Rules” Signs Adorn the Studio Walls

During my visit it was between live shows, so the studios were empty and dark. Signs covered the walls describing various rules, including lists of words not to say on the area and pleas to “not offend the locals.” One sign had the message, “If you wouldn’t say it around Grandma, don’t play or say it on the air! AVOID THE OBSCENE,” and was illustrated with a photo of an older woman holding a cat. Apology notes were scattered about the studio and I was told that this was another rule and tradition for DJs who accidentally swear on the air or play songs with dirty words.

A few lined “Matilda” notebooks were on the counter and were filled with messages and artwork scribbled by DJs during their shows. Similar to DJ notebooks that I’ve seen at other college radio stations, Raines told me that they are a long-time WZLY tradition that serves as a “journal…within the studio…for DJs,” in which they “write little sign-offs” and “write about their days” and “draw little pictures.”

100+ Members and More than 80 shows on WZLY in Fall 2025

This semester there are around 80 programs on the WZLY schedule, with shows running from around 8am until midnight. When there isn’t a live DJ or host an automated mix of music (new each month and called heavy rotation), curated by the WZLY music department, plays. The station is led by students on its E-board, managing a variety of committees that include campus events, music directory, tech, business, outreach, etc.

With around 100 active members, WZLY’s shows are produced and hosted by students, but anyone can listen online, which is important because the FM range is limited. Raines said that parents and friends from home tend to listen. While writing this piece I tuned in to a show during which a DJ and sibling joked about their parents being the only listeners.

Raines mentioned that some DJs are expressing interest in playing CDs and vinyl records, although while we were in the on-air studio a digital mix of music was playing and the turntables were not in working order. In describing the October 2025 mix curated by the music directory committee, Raines characterized it as “very autumnal.” The training studio had recently been refreshed with some new microphones and other audio equipment. Turntables looked to be in working order and there were even cassettes in that room. Raines speculated that the music directory group may be working to activate that space for special live music programming in addition to the studio’s use during intern training.

As I was about to depart, interns began trickling in for a session in the studio with intern coordinator Maddie Hansen. Hansen mentioned that as a senior she was already starting to feel nostalgic about her time at the station, as she had been participating since her first semester in college. Raines is a junior and joined WZLY last year. Reflecting on her time at the station she told me, “I love the community of WZLY! I have a show with one of my wonderful friends (Stephanie), and together we have Sunday ‘Mornings’ with DJ Ama and DJ B, and it is a great way to block out the time to hang out.”

Thanks to WZLY + Full List of Station Tours

Thanks to WZLY for the wonderful tour! It was such a treat to visit a college radio station that not only has so much history, but that also actively works to save materials related to their history. This is my 180th radio station tour report and my 122nd college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #180: WZLY-FM at Wellesley College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“The station’s in a bit a flux,” WBRS co-General Manager Ella Thanik said apologetically, after enthusiastically greeting me at the Brandeis University college radio station around lunchtime on a Thursday in early October. The student-run station had recently been painted and various items still hadn’t returned to their proper homes. A large dry erase board at the WBRS entrance had an alert scrawled on it: “Attention WBRS Users! Please excuse our appearance temporarily. We are in the midst of a studio refresh!”

In spite of these warnings, WBRS felt not only tidy, but cheerful. Sun streamed in the windows of the space, which is located on the third floor of the Shapiro Campus Center. On the day of my visit, the lobby of the building was quite lively, with students checking out vendors who were taking part in an Indigenous Peoples’ Day event.

As Thanik and Programming Director Lily Fasciano began to lead me around WBRS, a group of folks arrived for their radio show, which was produced as part of a Hebrew class. During their hour in the on-air studio, we toured the rest of the station, taking a look at the record library, production studios, office spaces, and gathering areas.

Huge Record Library is Full of Vinyl, CDs and Cassettes

A large room labeled “storage” is home to the WBRS record library/archives, full of high density rolling shelves packed with vinyl records and CDs. Thanik said that at one point it was purportedly the largest record collection in the northeast, but she conceded that it is no longer the case. Cassettes of old WBRS recordings are contained in stacked boxes in the same room. Many of them are from long-running shows The Joint and WBRS Coffeehouse, and document live performances recorded for on-air broadcast.

While surveying the room, Thanik and Fasciano told me that there’s interest in creating a dedicated space to record live music for broadcast, along the lines of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. The music library is one contender and they imagined having the shelves of records as a backdrop. This “archive room” also contains a turntable and I was told that there is also hope for this space to become a listening room as well, allowing DJs to come through and preview physical media from the vast WBRS collection.

Tech Challenges and Projects at WBRS

A class D FM station, WBRS broadcasts at 100.1 FM to a small radius near the Brandeis University campus in Waltham, Massachusetts, west of Boston. The station also streams online, although its full website was down at the time of my visit. Thanik and Fasciano explained that WBRS has had a variety of technical issues and tasks recently, including tower maintenance over the summer. It was hoped that the website would soon be fully operational again.

Other projects in the works at WBRS include creating a dedicated recording studio in a small studio (labeled “live engineering studio”) along the same hallway as the on-air studio. Currently filled with a nearly complete drum set, the space is envisioned to serve as a satellite location for an already-operational live recording set-up at the campus library called SIMS (Sound and Image Media Studios). In addition to offering studio spaces, SIMS also loans out audio-visual equipment. A subgroup within the station, The WBRS Student Music Committee, is working on the live recording studio and other music projects. It also has an office/closet at the radio station, where it houses even more music and sound equipment.

Touring WBRS: Funky Decor and Surprises Behind Every Door

Right next to the Student Music Committee office are large windows, which help to flood light into a small seating area. A life-size cardboard cut-out of film character Ron Burgundy (a promotional item that I’ve oddly seen at multiple college radio stations) stands by the door to the office. He’s been decorated with a straw hat, WBRS T-shirt and sunglasses. A large mixing board is set up on a stand in that corner, with Burgundy looking over it.

Other station spaces include a manager office, which is mainly used for storage. And next to the on-air studio is a room labeled “recording studio,” that is typically a place where people do live DJ mixing. Across the hall is a door labeled Radio Tech/Tech Closet 1, serving as both storage and office space. Industrial desks are on one side of the room, with file cabinets on the other. We took a little treasure hunt through the drawers and found many gems, including paper playlists, flyers, station newsletters, and equipment manuals.

A funny thing about the offices and studios throughout WBRS is that they have very official door signs on them with titles that don’t necessarily match the current use of the spaces. An example of that is that the tech room has a handmade paper sign on it that reads “Welcome to the Music Office. Welcome to the Tech. Office. Uhhhh……Welcome to THE OFFICE!” In typical college radio style, that door is also covered with band and music-related stickers, miscellaneous notes, and other artifacts, including a tiny plastic alien.

Fall 2025 Schedule with Range of Shows

WBRS is led by 15 student managers who serve on the executive board of the station. Around 45 DJs/hosts are on the schedule this semester, with the vast majority students. The handful of community DJs include a DJ who has been at WBRS since 1977. Andy Nagy has been hosting “Black Jack Davy” all this time. Focused on folk and roots music, the program is rumored to be “one of the longest running folk radio programs in the country, if not the world!”

The wide range of shows on WBRS this semester include “I am the Arm: A David Lynch Radio Show” and miscellaneous music shows covering jazz, soul, blues, rock, pop, house, indie, R&B and more. Talk programming includes a local news show on Thursday mornings.

Checking out the On-Air Studio

Hosts and DJs broadcast from the on-air studio. A nicely appointed room, the studio is decorated with throw rugs, a bust sculpture, a funky floor lamp and two couches (one black leather and another of the dorm-issued variety with wooden framing). Sort of a glass box, the on-air studio is visible to everyone walking through the station. Large windows overlook the hallway, another window provides a glimpse of outside, while another looks into the DJ mixing studio. The on-air studio is outfitted with a mixing board, microphones, turntables, headphones, CD players and a computer.

Even though WBRS is still rethinking studio spaces and getting items back on the walls, creative energy still oozes out of the space. Posters and framed vintage t-shirts are propped outside the studio, providing a snapshot of some of the enviable shows that WBRS helped to present, including performances by Black Flag and Live Skull. A very DIY zine is atop a pile of ephemera by the station door, a souvenir of a recent semesterly “zine night” in which station members come together to collaborate in making a zine using paper, scissors, markers and other craft supplies.

Brief History of WBRS

A long-time radio station, WBRS is the descendant of a 1950s student radio club and carrier current station at Brandeis originally known as WLDB. After renaming itself WBRS (for Brandeis Radio Service) the club launched a campus-only carrier current station circa 1961. In 1968, the group was granted a class D FM license and began broadcasts over 91.7 FM. WBRS moved up the dial to 100.1 FM in 1984 and continues to broadcast with a class D license. Reflecting on that history, WBRS co-General Manager Ella Thanik shared, “I love being able to continue such a long standing legacy! We are one of the oldest clubs at Brandeis, and being able to carry on something that has been important to so many people in our community is such a cool experience.”

Thanks to WBRS + Radio Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Ella Thanik and Lily Fasciano for showing me around WBRS! This is my 179th radio station tour report and my 121st college radio station tour. Please take a look at the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #179: WBRS-FM at Brandeis University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The magic of college radio lies not just in the sounds that are transmitted over the airwaves, but also emanates from the spaces from which stations operate. Often these are in obscure locales, tucked away in basements or on the edge of a campus. And sometimes the buildings themselves have their own unusual story, like the former student bank that houses CJSR 88.5 FM at University of Alberta. Seizing on the opportunity to embrace a funky feature of the space, the campus and community radio station built its on-air studio out of the old vault. DJs enter through the thick, heavy red door to do their shows. And because of its weight, the door is always kept ajar, even though this means that sound from the studio wafts into the record library and vice versa.

While I love the story of the bank vault, I was also enamored with so much more at CJSR. My first visit to a station in Canada, the tour took place during a break while I was attending the SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute on the campus in Edmonton in May, 2023. Two long-time CJSR staff members, Program Director Chad Brunet and Music Librarian/Production Coordinator Matthew Gooding, showed me around the station’s basement digs in the Students’ Union building at University of Alberta.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we touched on everything from weird station traditions to the challenges of coming back after COVID to the maximalist office decor to some of the gems that have passed through the station’s treasure chest full of freebies. It was another one of those visits for me where it was difficult to leave, as I furiously tried to capture every last detail about the surroundings.

History of CJSR-FM

Launched over FM in 1984, CJSR has deep ties with its home institution, but is run by the not-for-profit First Alberta Campus Radio Association (FACRA), which holds its broadcast license. More than a third of the station’s budget comes from the University of Alberta Students’ Union. Dedicated fees from membership in the Students’ Union help fund not only the radio station, but also a student newspaper, campus food bank, health service, and more. With a very small staff, CJSR relies on its nearly 300 volunteers to keep the radio station running.

University of Alberta Radio Dates Back to the 1920s

Although CJSR’s FM signal debuted in 1984, campus radio at University of Alberta began with broadcasts over Edmonton radio station CJCA in 1925. Two years later, the school bought local radio station CFCK, changed the call letters to CKUA and ran the station as an educational broadcaster over AM beginning in 1927. CKUA’s studios were moved off campus in 1955 and its license was transferred to Alberta Educational Communications Corporation (ACCESS Alberta) in 1974. Additional license transfers took place over the years, with CKUA-AM and FM now run as a public radio station by the CKUA Radio Foundation.

By the mid-1940s, CKUA was funded by groups outside of the university, leaving an opportunity for another radio station to emerge of campus. In 1946, the University of Alberta Student Radio Directorate was formed and built a radio studio, from which it created and sent programming to CKUA. Changing its name to the Alberta Student Radio Society in 1948, this group began to originate campus-only broadcasts via a closed-circuit public address system and eventually shifted to AM carrier current transmissions (under the call letters CKSR for CKUA “Student Radio”) to various campus buildings and dorms. An FM cable signal was added in 1976 and the station changed its call letters to CJSR in 1978, as it moved it carrier current frequency to 1580 kHz. When it obtained its FM license in 1983, CJSR turned back its license for its AM carrier current transmissions.

Wide Mix of Spoken Word and Music on CJSR Today

Today, CJSR prides itself on the breadth of music and talk programming on its airwaves. Shows range from syndicated news (BBC World Service, Democracy Now) to locally-produced spoken word programs and music shows focused on metal, the history of punk, hardcore, hip-hop, classical, pop, blues, jazz, electronic, Caribbean music, film music, and music from Canada. The environmental news show “Terra Informa” is a lauded CJSR program running since 2003, which is now carried by other radio stations.

Rachel, the on-air DJ during my visit, was playing metal, which it turns out is one of the more popular genres at CJSR. Several CJSR shows are geared toward heavy sounds and metal programming is “hugely popular,” according to Program Director Chad Brunet. As he pointed to various shows on the schedule, which was craftily posted to his office wall using push pins and rectangular slips of paper, he reflected back on the challenges of the prior three years. Sadly, some long-time programs didn’t survive the COVID pandemic and the whole experience “messed up the volunteer make-up,” after classes and station operations went fully remote.

CJSR was doing all live programming (with the exception of syndicated shows) prior to 2020. A newly acquired automation system was just getting rolled out around that time and it proved useful when they had to evacuate the studios. Eventually programmers began to record shows at home and the station became a “ghost town.” Fifty-five percent of the prior schedule was lost and it was “difficult to maintain enthusiasm.” Thankfully at the time of my May 2023 visit, CJSR was on an upswing, as things shifted in fall 2022 with an influx of participants again. Students and alumni comprised about 50% of volunteers.

CJSR Traditions

As we wandered about the radio station, it was fun to hear about various CJSR traditions. One is linked to DIY sport coats and another to a shiny sign on the wall. The jackets, an early 2000s CJSR street team uniform, are adorned with the words “Guerrilla Laser Force” on the back and “Rock is Dead” on the inside. Brunet reluctantly slipped on a coat, saying “it’s just awful,” and that “we don’t force people to wear these anymore.” The outerwear is kept around as a station relic “for laughs.”

A long-time tradition that evokes more station pride is a metal CJSR sign in the lobby. Covered with signatures from notable visitors, the inked names include a Canadian astronaut, musician Frank Black, and broadcaster Amy Goodman amongst others.

Archives within the Station Walls at CJSR

Although Brunet articulated that CJSR wasn’t that great at capturing its history and archiving materials, the station was full of lovingly preserved items. Projects were underway to digitize CDs and reel-to-reels and one recent find was a 1986 episode of “Gay Wire,” a show devoted to LGBTQ issues that was assumed to have debuted later than the tape would suggest. Additionally, the station’s record library is filled with vinyl records, CDs, and cassettes.

The oldest records have flaking spines, showing the wear-and-tear expected at a decades-old radio station. At last count (over a decade ago), it was estimated that the collection held between 75,000 and 85,000 records. Amongst the vinyl are a range of genres, including “country AND western,” plus some uncatalogued records from an old show, “Chinese Connection” that left its records behind. Some of the intriguing albums from that program include a worker-themed record with “Spring Comes Early to the Commune” on its back cover.

As I wrapped up my tour of CJSR, Gooding and Brunet offered me various promotional items. Tote bags, T-shirts and decals adorned with adorable artwork were hard to pass up. The station also crafts CD compilations and some unique items like branded belt buckets, a wallet, patches, and earplugs. I accepted a few tchotchkes (it’s always hard to refuse) and said my farewells as I headed back to immerse myself in the SpokenWeb sound studies conference once again.

Thanks to CJSR + Full List of Station Tours

Thanks to Chad Brunet and Matthew Gooding for a really fun visit to CJSR! This is my 178th radio station tour report and my 120th college radio station tour. Please take a look at the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #178: CJSR-FM at University of Alberta appeared first on Radio Survivor.

It was a surreal experience to return to one of my college radio alma maters, WBGU 88.1 FM at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), and encounter an unrecognizable radio station and campus. Granted it had been nearly 30 years since I’d left northwest Ohio, but I was still surprised by just how much can change. The building that housed WBGU when I was a grad student was torn down in 2017. And the historic house built from a Sears catalog kit that was the headquarters of my graduate department (Popular Culture), was demolished in 2012.

Both spaces hold incredible memories for me of an influential two-year period of my life. I don’t think I’d ever worked harder. I studied, wrote, taught undergraduates, graded papers, DJ’d, saw tons of live music in Ohio and Michigan, and stayed up into the wee hours tallying WBGU playlists to compile charts for weekly submission to CMJ. It was a magical time where I started to truly understand the importance of and power of college radio. MTV News even came to town and interviewed a few of us college radio participants at a local record shop, as they tried to capture a glimpse of the 1990s indie music scene in small town America.

Flashback to WBGU-FM circa 1995-1997

During my stint as a DJ and assistant music director at WBGU-FM, the station was a 1000 watt music-focused non-commercial station with an emphasis on rock, metal, jazz, and hip-hop. In fall 1995, my first semester at the station, evening shows included hip-hop (“Power 88”) several nights a week and metal shows (“Metal Storm”) from midnight to 2am most days. Jazz (“Jazz Unlimited”), reggae, and country shows populated the morning drive time. The rest of the schedule was a mix of mostly rock, with some shows dedicated to punk, hardcore, freeform, techno, world music, folk, womyn in music, sports talk, and more. Live sports coverage also aired on WBGU, sometimes breaking into scheduled music shows.

In the 1990s, the WBGU-FM space in 120 West Hall (on the first floor) included the on-air studio, news/interview booth, a small record library with vinyl and CDs, and an office area. Adjacent to WBGU was a studio for our sister station WFAL-AM (pronounced “waffle”), which was a commercial station broadcasting to the campus dorms using carrier current. My perception at the time was that WBGU functioned like a student club, whereas WFAL had more of a pre-professional orientation. I assumed that WFAL was operated in conjunction with telecommunications classes since WFAL tended to have more news, sports, and mainstream music programming. Digging into the archives, It turns out that some of my assumptions were wrong. WBGU and WFAL both had student leaders. And WFAL’s programming mix was more diverse than I’d realized.

History of College Radio at Bowling Green State University

While a student at Bowling Green, I was completely unaware of the long radio history on campus. The first radio class (“Radio Workshop”) was introduced in 1939 and by 1947, a basketball game was broadcast using a closed-circuit set-up over a public address system. In 1948, campus-only carrier current station WRSM launched at 600 kilocycles, with help from both students and a speech professor. A 1974 piece about Bowling Green radio’s history explains that the call letters were specifically selected by the professor as sort of a voice and diction exercise, as he considered them to be “a tough combination of sounds” for many with mid-western accents.

WRSM’s schedule included music, news, and sports. In January 1949, just a year after its launch, it had a staff of 75 and a music library with more than 900 records. By 1951, an application was filed for an FM license, with WBGU launching that year over 88.1 FM as initially a 10 watt station. Power was increased to 1350 watts in 1959. By the late 1960s, student leadership at WBGU was replaced by “three full-time employees and two graduate assistants in broadcasting.”

WFAL-AM Launches in 1970 as “Alternative Voice”

Because of this change in management at WBGU, campus-only carrier current station WFAL began broadcasts in 1970 as “an alternative voice” for students. While serving as an alternative, it was also designed to be a place where “broadcasting students” could obtain experience in “contemporary, commercial radio.” WFAL initially played primarily Top 40 and progressive music, with specialty shows devoted to oldies, jazz, and comedy. By the 1980s its focus was more pop/rock. And during the 1990s, the schedule also included techno, hip-hop, reggae and more. By 2009, 50% of WFAL’s schedule was hip-hop programming. WFAL dropped its AM carrier current signal in 2008 to broadcast primarily online and eventually stopped using the call letters. The station now goes by the name Falcon Radio.

WBGU-FM’s Shifts in Programming in the 1970s and 1980s

Over the years, programming had many shifts on both WBGU and WFAL. In the 1970s, WBGU-FM had more of community-focus, airing National Public Radio programming, while also broadcasting student-oriented rock music at night. By 1976, the station had lost its NPR affiliation and in the 1980s and 1990s the station seemed to have shifted back to alternative programming led by students. In 1982, WBGU’s program director described the station’s music mix in a letter to the editor of the BG News, saying “WBGU’s prime goal is to serve the community through its programming of alternative music. This also includes jazz, soul, tex mex, country, reggae, plus more.” There were still debates about who the station served. A 1985 letter to editor of the BG News complained that WBGU played music found on commercial radio and was more focused on the community than on students.

By the 1990s, WBGU branded itself as Shark Radio and in addition to its alternative programming, it also produced regular live sports broadcasts. In 1996, WBGU killed off the shark and embraced the mole as its new mascot, describing its kinship with the station’s programming since moles live “underground.” By the early 2000s, WBGU had added a website, which expanded to include not only a webstream, but also a message board in 2002, where fans could chat and obtain news about the station. Shifting to a new URL in 2003, the station maintained its own website at wbgufm.com until fall 2017.

WBGU-FM and Falcon Radio Today

Today, WBGU-FM and Falcon Radio operate under the umbrella of Bowling Green Falcon Media, which also includes BG News (print and web journalism) and BG 24 (video content). The two radio stations now share a website and are located adjacent to each other in the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center, which opened in Fall 2016. In addition to on-air studios, the space also has production studios. A recording studio in the same building features a control room that connects to the radio station to enable broadcasts of live performances.

Although there weren’t too many students around campus when I visited WBGU-FM on a Wednesday evening in July in 2023; I was able to see radio in action as I sat in on my friend’s show. Rob Sloane, WBGU’s Music Director, is a faculty member and has been an off-and-on WBGU DJ since the 1990s. We met when we were both grad students/DJs at Bowling Green.

As I sat with Rob during his show, he played some old favorites, including staples of our time at WBGU in the 1990s. After popping discs from Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, Bis, and Stereolab into the CD player, he jotted down his playlist for his personal archive. Multiple times throughout the show, he gave full weather reports and announced events happening in town. It took me back to my WBGU days, when we had to monitor a weather radio in case we needed to announce alerts and warnings for tornadoes in particular. As a California native, I was terrified of thunderstorms and any hint of a tornado; so having to be a calm voice on the radio in those circumstances was challenging.

The current WBGU studio is light-filled, spacious and modern, surrounded by windows. The ground-floor station overlooks the campus one one side, Falcon Radio’s studio on another, and a hallway with seating on another, allowing visitors to peek into the booth. The lovely view of lush lawns and leafy mature trees felt like it captured not only an iconic collegiate scene, but also a snapshot of a quiet, warm summer night in the mid-west.

After Rob’s show, he gave me a quick tour of WBGU outside of the studio. A lobby opens into the studio space, as well as to several small production booths. A sticker-covered door from the old station is propped along the wall of the lobby and a bulletin board is covered with clippings and flyers. Charming children’s artwork, including a colorful drawing of tulips and music notes, promotes WBGU’s “Family Radio” show. Down the hall, there is also a closet-like record library, with shelves packed with boxes of CDs.

Affixed to the wall of the record library is the “WBGU Vault Indie CD Sign-Out Sheet,” which DJs are asked to fill out if they are checking out CDs to preview for their shows. While the library contains mostly labeled boxes of CDs, there’s also a small collection of vinyl. It’s a greatly reduced library since the station’s days in West Hall and many of the old CDs were sold off for $5 a bag back in 2016 as WBGU was downsizing its collection before the move to the new building.

With community, faculty and student DJs, the current WBGU-FM schedule includes shows devoted to world music, children’s programming, jazz, reggae, blues, polka, folk, punk, new music and more. The Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce runs the “Morning Show,” a weekday morning program that highlights local news, events, sports, community members and organizations.

Thanks to WBGU + Radio Station Tour Archive

Thanks so much to my friend Rob Sloane for the WBGU tour and for allowing me to be a fly on the wall during his show. It was so nostalgic for me to be back on campus. This is my 177th radio station tour report and my 119th college radio station recap. You can peruse all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #177: WBGU-FM at Bowling Green State University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

One version of my radio nerd dream vacation includes a cross-country road trip, with numerous stops at college radio stations along the way. With family in tow, it’s a tough sell; however over the years I’ve been able to convince them to indulge me in my obsessive quest to tick off more spots on my mental list of must-see radio stations. In summer 2023, with my kid settled in at a summer program in Manhattan, my husband and I sought adventure on the open road, trekking from the Big Apple to Chicago. Of course there were countless college radio stations on our route, but I exhibited restraint and only booked two tours.

Close to the beginning of our journey, we started our day in the Catskills. After a very stormy night, we took a beautiful hike to a waterfall and then wandered about the small town that we were staying in. We poked around a vintage car show, then hit the road to Oneonta to see WONY 90.9 FM at the State University of New York, Oneonta, about 80 miles west of Albany. Unsurprisingly, campus was quiet on the Saturday in mid-July that we visited. Just about to head out on vacation himself, WONY faculty adviser Andrew Bottomley happily met up with us to give the grand tour.

WONY’s New Digs Retain Touches of College Radio Station’s Past

An interesting aspect of WONY is that it’s housed in a relatively new location with the latest audio equipment and technology, yet it retains some of the charm of its most recent long-time home. When Bottomley began working as faculty adviser in 2016, plans were already underway for the station to move. As he got more involved with the process, he took a lot of care to listen to both students and alumni who expressed concerns about losing the visible expressions of the station’s personality – from physical media like records and CDs to vintage equipment to sticker-covered doors.

A creative example of this effort is the student-painted dragon mural that greets visitors as they step into WONY. A photographic reproduction of a mural from the wall of the old station, it’s one way that alumni can feel welcomed back into a familiar-feeling space. Traditionally, alumni sign that wall during station reunion weekends every year; so the new wallpaper-style mural allows for both new and old autographs to remain. The dragon is a nod to the Red Dragon mascot for SUNY Oneonta; however that mascot is not used exclusively at WONY, which also added a cute blue whale (Wally) as a station mascot perhaps a decade or so ago.

With a 60+ year history dating back to 1961, WONY has an active and engaged crew of alums, many of whom had “trepidation” about the latest station move. Bottomley said that those fears have largely dissipated, in part because former station members can see things at the new WONY that “connect to the old space,” including a decades-old console displayed on a wall next to award plaques and framed certificates.

Physical Music is Prioritized in WONY’s Revamped CD Library

Additionally, as part of an independent study project, a student organized and cataloged the WONY CD library in a way that both shows pride in the collection; but that also makes it easier for DJs to access and utilize the discs. With around 10,000 CDs from mostly the late 1980s to around 2004, WONY’s music library was in the process of being digitized at the time of my visit. Bottomley was pleased that with a CD revival happening, many students at WONY are “starting to discover CDs in the way that students were discovering vinyl in the past.”

Unfortunately, not much vinyl is left at WONY following a mysterious vinyl sell-off circa 2008, which was rumored to have financed the purchase of a conference table. That series of events angered alumni and as a result Bottomley wanted to protect the CDs and ensure that the sense of betrayal that many felt regarding the lost vinyl would not be repeated. He said that alumni would get teary-eyed as they spoke about the records that were disposed of and remarked that, “I’m not going to let that happen to the CD library.”

Completed during the height of COVID in the 2020-2021 academic year, the current home for WONY is centrally located in the basement of Hunt Union, next to a theater. The station space includes two broadcast studios, two podcast booths, a production office and an administration office. Now in its 4th location on campus, WONY’s previous digs were in Alumni Hall, which was slated for renovation.

WONY History: 1962 Launch as AM Carrier Current Station

Launching as an AM carrier current station (at 620 AM) in 1962, by the late 1960s, WONY had added an FM signal through a partnership with the local cable television network. Bottomley told me that this was one of the first cable television networks in the United States and WONY’s inclusion on it made it one of the early college radio participants. This expanded the station’s reach to the town of Oneonta, as residents could tune in through video cable at 93.6 FM when it launched in March 1968 and later on a series of other spots on the dial, including 89.0 in December 1968 and at 106.3 in 1972.

Cable FM and Expanded Programming for WONY in Early 1970s

During this period, WONY’s General Manager Roger Smith worked to get more attention for the station, writing to IBS’ Journal of College Radio imploring the publication to highlight smaller stations in its “Station of the Month” feature. In his April 1971 pitch for WONY (published as a “letter to the editor”), Smith asks, “What about the little guy who might be running a pretty good ship, without anyone being paid, operating on a minimal budget, without speech department backing or even the active help of an advisor? He rarely receives recognition or even a pat on the back from The Journal.” He goes on to describe WONY as “just a small, average college radio station” and included photos and details about WONY’s operations that were published as a stand-alone article titled “Bigger and Better” in the same issue. The station had expanded into new studios the year before and WONY was on the air with live programs 21 hours a day. Some highlights of the station’s programming in 1971 included remote basketball game broadcasts and a weekly coffee house show.

WONY-FM Launches in 1976

Although the 1971 Journal of College Radio article didn’t include mention of WONY’s cable FM endeavors, a few months later in its February 1972 issue, the publication reported on this as a trend in broadcasting. The piece describes cable FM as a “new method of college broadcasting” that had been “growing substantially in the last few years.” They cited seven known stations in operation, including WONY, which was on cable FM through at least 1974. Within a few years, WONY’s reach expanded even further after it acquired an FM license from the FCC. In 1976, WONY-FM officially launched over 90.9 FM with 10 watts of power. Eventually, the station’s power increased to its current 180 watts over the same frequency.

WONY Programming and Events in 2025

A student-operated and student-funded organization, WONY is active both on and off the air. To participate in station activities, one must be either a SUNY Oneonta student or faculty member. The station airs both music and talk shows, including some shows that blend the two, like Ball & Beats, which is described on the schedule as “a show about sports and other fun topics while listening to Hip-Hop hits.” On Saturday nights, “What’s for Dinner” is a show “dedicated to thinking about, talking about, and planning what’s for dinner,” with each episode tackling “a new food topic” while also playing music. Other programs focus on alternative rock, music from vinyl records, 1970s-1990s music, pop, indie, and “themed music” (a recent edition was about music from the British Invasion).

Additionally, all members and DJs at WONY are required to join a station department (music, production, PR or events). Each year, WONY puts on two big concert events: HalloWONY in the fall and WONY Island in the spring. The most recent WONY Island was a Sunday afternoon show featuring 10 local bands playing sets in the Fine Arts building on April 6, 2025. The station will also participate in Vinylthon this year, playing 24 hours of music from vinyl records starting on April 12 at 8pm.

Thanks to WONY and Full Roster of Station Tours

Thanks to my friend Andrew Bottomley for taking the time out of his summer back in 2023 to show me around WONY!

This is my 176th radio station tour report and my 118th college radio station recap. You can peruse all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #176: WONY at SUNY Oneonta appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On a Sunday morning, when most college students were likely asleep, KUCR Music Director Diya Anantharaman cheerfully greeted me at University of California, Riverside’s college radio station. Off-the-beaten path, KUCR 88.3 FM occupies a couple of low-slung aging buildings that are adjacent to residence halls and apartments near the northern edge of campus.

A visit to KUCR is like a step back in time (in the best possible way), with tidbits of station history dotting the walls and studios. Vintage embossed labels meticulously describe the location and functionality of decades-old audio equipment and retro signage communicates station rules as well as what’s behind various office doors (including “restroom/storage”). While these indicators of KUCR’s long run as a station (broadcasts began from this very building in 1966) ooze with nostalgic charm; the station continues to have a vibrant presence in 2025.

Third year student Anantharaman was so enthusiastic about college radio, that they applied to be at KUCR before even starting school at UC Riverside. Having made playlists since high school, they began as a KUCR DJ as a first-year student and took on the role of music director as a sophomore. Describing KUCR is “one of my favorite places to be,” Anantharaman added that a benefit of the “very welcoming” college radio station is that it serves as an “art space” on campus.

As one might expect from a college radio music director, Anantharaman’s own show is quite experimental and often features artist interviews and a mix of poetry, electronic music, harsh noise, metal, Bollywood music, and much more. They said that sometimes the weather influences their playlist, with one goal of the show to be “perceptive” to what’s going on around them.

Anantharaman characterized most DJs at KUCR as being diverse in terms of their music selections and said that there aren’t too many restrictions as far as what you can and cannot do on your show. Hosts include students, alumni, and even some UC Riverside professors. While most of KUCR’s new music adds are digital, they also add some CDs and the station’s library includes a portion of their vinyl library. A mail tub of FCC-friendly CDs sits in the main studio, in close reach in case of technology emergencies during which DJs might not have access to the mostly-played digital music files.

Snapshot of College Radio Station KUCR’s Early Days

KUCR’s emphasis on diversity in music and news was in place from the very beginning. The station’s original sign-on script when it launched on 88.1 FM in October 1966 reads in part that KUCR planned to “present a wide variety of music,” with a particular focus on music “geared to the college community” and “which is not readily available from other local radio stations.”

KUCR alumnus and former station manager Bob Stubenrauch’s remembrances of the early years of the college radio station offer a fascinating glimpse at how quickly students were able to ramp up their operations and reach listeners across the country during the Vietnam War. By the 1968-1969 academic year, KUCR was on the air 24 hours a day and had a staff of 120, with 75 on-air DJs. The station was also part of the UC Radio News Network, which “bloomed in the 68-69 year as student unrest & protests continued to spread & grow,” according to Stubenrauch. He explains that the network began doing a combined news show three times a week featuring content from various University of California-based student radio stations. This eventually led to the production of daily live reports from throughout the network, as the pace of demonstrations and protests increased on all the campuses.

By 1970, KUCR was regularly sharing and receiving campus news and protest coverage with college radio stations from all over the United States. According to Stubenrauch, “…we began calling college radio stations all over the nation, asking them to tell us what was going on at their schools. We became a primary news gathering & dissemination source for campus radio stations all over the country. Harvard, Yale, New York University, University of Chicago & many other were onboard to give & receive news clips to & from KUCR.”

KUCR Schedule Offers a Mix of Radio Programming

As was the case in its early days, the current KUCR schedule features a broad mix of news and music programming. Locally-produced and syndicated news and public affairs shows airing on KUCR include “Children’s Hour,” “Autotalk,” “Philosophy Talk,” “Big Picture Science,” “Alternative Radio” and more. A long-time highlight of the schedule is Radio Aztlan, a Chicano/Latino alternative program that has been on the air for 35+ years and features a mix of music, interviews, and a community calendar.

KUCR’s music shows cover a range of genres including jazz, reggae, folk, classical, R&B, soul, rock, electronic, blues, and more. Whimsical names like “Sonic Bloom,” “Vibe Check,” “Outsider Roundup,” “Radio Prosthesis,” “Musick 4 Riots” and “Hippie Love Turbo” hint at the often hard-to-pin-down mix of sounds.

A recent promotional flyer for DJ Amos Figueroa’s Monday afternoon show “Biodigital Dreams” is indicative of that music breadth. The show “features 90’s and 2000’s music that evokes feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality.” While it’s not uncommon for DJs to create artwork to promote their radio shows, it was nice to see that KUCR also makes an effort to publicize their DJs. During my tour around KUCR in early February 2025, one of the first things to catch my eye were clippings from the school newspaper, The Highlander, featuring profiles of KUCR DJs, that were ads run by the station.

Promoting KUCR + An Extra Special Leo Blais Sign

In addition to getting the word out about KUCR through the UC Riverside newspaper, the station also regularly tables on campus, provides DJs for local events, collaborated with local music festival Mucho Gusto, and recently hosted a karaoke night. I was also glad to see that KUCR was on the radar of musician Leo Blais, who sent the station TWO copies of personalized KUCR signs.

While I’ve seen his creations in college radio stations from coast to coast, this is the first time that I’ve spotted an identical duo of Leo Blais signs in one station. One is perched next to a teddy bear high on a shelf in KUCR’s lobby, while another sits in the KUCR interview room stacked on top of a receiver and CD player.

Thanks to KUCR + Station Tour Archive

Thanks to Diya Anantharaman for the wonderful tour of KUCR. It was great to finally get the opportunity to visit and add to my nearly complete roster of visits to stations on University of California campuses. Other UC radio tours include UC Berkeley’s KALX, UC Davis’ KDVS, UC Santa Cruz’s KZSC, UC Santa Barbara’s KCSB, UC Irvine’s KUCI, and UC San Diego’s KSDT.

This is my 175th radio station tour report and my 117th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #175: KUCR at UC Riverside appeared first on Radio Survivor.

As we chatted over lunch in the dining hall at Bowdoin College on a late August afternoon, Mason Daugherty, one of the Station Managers of college radio station WBOR-FM, said quick “hellos” to friends who he hadn’t seen in months. The verdant campus in Brunswick, Maine was coming to life, as students were beginning to arrive for orientation training and athletic activities. Daugherty had been there all summer, working at a job nearby and tending to the radio station at the small liberal arts college. Time was of the essence for my visit, as this fall is WBOR’s final semester in its home in the Dudley Coe basement.

WBOR’s Cozy Basement Home in Dudley Coe

Tucked away in the back of Dudley Coe, WBOR is accessed by descending a short set of concrete steps. As the front door opens, a soft glow emanates from a variety of sources, including string lighting, a shaded swing arm lamp, a pink neon sign, audio equipment, and a red, yellow, and green traffic light perched on a shelf. The typical college-issued harsh overhead fluorescent bulbs have been turned off and the subdued lighting sets the tone as both an inviting and relaxing space. A lounge area is outfitted with comfy chairs, an area rug, coffee table, and customized throw pillows with a cassette tape-themed WBOR logo.

The station walls are covered with posters, flyers, stickers, and handwritten notes and drawings from DJs past and present. While some of these musings were clearly scribbled for shock value (“I love boobs”), others hint at the intellectual pursuits of their authors. From existential crises (“You can send me to college, but you can’t make me think”) to short stories-in-the-making (“I feel like my mom doing heroin in the 90s”), to bittersweet love notes memorializing Bowdoin and WBOR (“Goodbye WBOR I mean Dudley Coe the only non sterile space on campus here’s to everything that has disappeared but meant everything at a time”); the prose on all the station spaces would take hours to fully document.

Music and Ephemera at WBOR

Decorative beads hang from a doorway that leads from the lounge into a room bordered by music. Vinyl records and CDs are stashed in shelves and drawers throughout the station, while fake flowers, plastic figurines, a lava lap, and other ephemera add to the funky atmosphere. There’s an Apples in Stereo painting by prolific artist Steve Keene (a college radio staple!) in one of the studios and a metal cabinet in the bathroom is like a 1990s (and earlier) time capsule, covered with a faded Del Rubio Triplets album cover and stickers from Buffalo Daughter, Komeda, Superchunk, Spiritualized and other bands of the era.

Modern Technology in the College Radio Station Studio

The large broadcast studio has a vintage “on-air” light hanging over the entrance and I was told by Mason that it is an antique from the station’s early days. Inside the studio are modern additions, including an interface that Mason had designed, allowing DJs to easily play through a series of station announcements. Computer monitors display station information, text messages from listeners, and playlist details. An LED sign perched behind the mixing board shows the date and time, but can also be configured to show details from EAS tests and alerts. While doing their live programs from this studio, DJs can play music from turntables, CD players and digital sources.

Evidence of the Past in Funky WBOR Space

Adding to the funkiness of the WBOR space is the building’s back story. Dudley Coe used to be the home of the Bowdoin infirmary and there are still remnants and reminders of those days, including a metal circuit breaker box with the word X-Ray stenciled on it in black ink. Apparently there’s also dumb waiter running through the building and claw foot bathtubs. Most of the organizations that were more recently housed in Dudley Coe have moved out, leaving WBOR alone in the basement.

Books and other items from the long-gone print shop are scattered throughout the adjoining rooms, alongside dust and cobwebs. When leaving the coziness of WBOR’s corner of the basement, the unoccupied rooms feel creepy in comparison and lend credence to rumors that the building is haunted. In spite of that, a handful of professors are using the upstairs rooms as temporary offices before the building gets demolished.

WBOR’s Impending Move

When January comes, the station’s operations are scheduled to be moved across campus to Coles Tower, once the tallest building in Maine. WBOR’s antenna is already atop the 16-story residence hall. The new first-floor space is radically smaller than the existing WBOR digs. Carved out of a former TV studio (which also operated as an interview room) the new WBOR will have only a few distinct rooms. A long entryway leads to an open area with wooden shelving for vinyl records on one wall and there’s already a copy of the 12″ of Prince and the Revolution’s “Another Lonely Christmas” sitting on the largely empty shelf. A window and doorway occupy the opposite wall, which leads to the studio. There are also a few small nooks, but the full layout is very much TBD. Mason anticipated not bringing much from the old space, telling me that they would likely digitize the CDs and then store them off-site.

Work to Save Radio History and Capture WBOR’s Past and Present

In anticipation of the move, WBOR has already started bringing historical items, like paperwork, zines, program guides, and posters, to Bowdoin College’s Special Collections so that this material will be preserved. The challenge, as Mason pointed out, is documenting everything scrawled on the walls and ceilings throughout WBOR. One idea is to do a 3D capture, so that people could potential walk through the station virtually in the future. Some short videos have already been shot, including a TikTok shot by Mason that went viral, garnering over a million views.

While I’m saddened by WBOR’s impending move, it’s encouraging that WBOR and Bowdoin College are working to save station materials. This was apparent to me during my visit to the library’s Special Collections and Archives, where I spent an afternoon combing through boxes and files full of radio station-related goodies. Carefully stored in archival boxes were WBOR ‘zines, playlists, DJ log books, posters, manuals, memos, FCC paperwork, stickers, flyers, reels, carts, and more — all capturing a history dating back to the 1950s for WBOR and back to the 1940s for broadcast radio activities on campus.

Storied History of College Radio at Bowdoin

Originally, students and faculty led radio projects under the banner of BOTA, for Bowdoin on the Air. While productions were recorded on campus, the broadcasts aired on other local stations. By 1950, Bowdoin was testing out its own AM signal, officially launching WBOA (for “Bowdoin-on-air”) in May, 1951 over 820 AM. A few months before launch, WBOA sent delegates to a regional college radio conference hosted by the Smith College Radio station WCSR. This event brought together station representatives from the east coast and was a sign of the growing number of collaborative endeavors by college radio stations in the 1940s and 1950s.

An FM frequency was added in 1956 and that marks the beginning of WBOR (for “Bowdoin-on-radio”) 91.1 FM. According to WBOR’s history timeline, “Most Bowdoin students didn’t own an FM radios during this period, so station management built and installed illegal Heathkit FM tuners and miniature AM transmitters in each campus dorm and fraternity house. The station transmitted on 640 kHz, which was then a CONELRAD frequency (used to broadcast emergency warning information in the event of a nuclear attack on the US).”

WBOR in 2024: Active and Thriving Radio Station

Today, WBOR is a very active group at Bowdoin, with around 200 participants, which is more than 10% of the student body. During the academic year, the makeup of WBOR is around 85% students, with community members (including faculty and staff – even deans!) comprising the remainder. The station has a freeform programming philosophy and it’s possible to tune in and hear shows that play wildly different music genres back to back. Some of the programs in spring 2024 included “Unspoken Guitar Heroes,” “Pink Finger: Riot Grrl Radio,” Your Dad’s CDs,” “PopRocks,” “La Bruja Azul,” “Coastal Classical,” “If It Sounds Country, That’s What it Is,” and more. Other shows were devoted to The Pixies, jazz, and other more esoteric themes, including one that sought inspiration from an episode of the Simpsons.

Getting ready to begin senior year, Mason remained upbeat about the station’s move, reasoning that it would be impossible to take everything with them, while also pointing out some of the benefits of the new space, including greater accessibility (no stairs) and more windows. Less hidden from view, it will be located in a building that houses dorm rooms and meeting spaces.

Thanks to WBOR + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to Mason Daugherty for the wonderful tour of WBOR. And many thanks to everyone in Bowdoin College Library’s George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives for all of their help before, during and after my visit to their reading room.

This is my 174th radio station tour report and my 116th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

The post Radio Station Visit #174: WBOR at Bowdoin College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The phrase “The neighbors complain,” circles around what appears to be a black WPIR pirate flag. This imagery on the website for college radio station WPIR Pratt Radio alludes to rumors and half-truths about student radio’s legacy and mysterious history on the Brooklyn, New York campus of the Pratt Institute. As is the case at many college radio stations, the concept of history is largely focused on the past few years. And with the COVID disruption, even that institutional memory has mostly been erased.

WPIR Pratt Radio in 2023

However, the 2022-2023 academic year shaped up to be a pivotal moment, with in-person classes happening once again and mask mandates loosening. After a few shaky years, WPIR Pratt Radio is back in action, broadcasting online from a spiffy new studio (as of February, 2023) in the recently renovated Chapel Hall. In spring, 2023, WPIR had 28 shows airing on its internet stream, as well as over speakers in the Student Union building.

Flyers, posters, 45rpm records, and other ephemera from the old station space (which was just down the hall and was WPIR’s home circa 2006-2023) adorn the walls of the two-room studio and a basket is filled with Polaroid photos of station members from the past. Formerly home to an interfaith lounge, the new WPIR space is divided in half by a window. The furthest room functions as a radio booth, where show hosts sit to do their programs.

WPIR’s Whimsical Communication System During Live Shows

The front room is where a “runner” sits, transmitting each live show to the internet stream. Initially station board members played that role, but now every show host is required to also “run” another program. A large collection of colorful, hand-drawn, whimsical signs featuring tips and inspirational messages sits on the counter. These signs are used as props by the show runner, as a way to communicate words of encouragement to the DJ or host. Messages include suggestions like, “The mic isn’t picking up your voice. Speak closer,” as well as praise, such as “This song slaps.”

At the time of my visit, DJs at WPIR only played digital music. However, inside a metal cabinet is a small collection of CDs, cassettes, LPs and 7″ inch records, along with cables and miscellaneous audio equipment. A stack of cover-less vintage records also sits in the studio. While these items hint at a longer station history, it’s difficult to discern the station’s precise trajectory over the past few decades.

WPIR Pratt’s Early College Radio Days over AM Carrier Current

Originally an AM carrier current station dating back to 1966, WPIR broadcast nightly at 600kc on AM from the first floor of the Willoughby dorm at Pratt, according to a 1971 residence hall handbook. These transmissions could eventually be heard across multiple dorms on campus. Although it was unlicensed carrier current, WPIR was seen as an important communications tool. A letter in student newspaper The Prattler, following student activism efforts and turmoil in 1969, states, “The utilization of radio, WPIR, posters and flyers through quantity and quality, can also aid in securing an informal, involved student body.”

1970s Scene at WPIR Pratt Radio

By the 1970s, WPIR DJs were spinning records on a variety of music shows. One such show was a late night rhythm and blues program hosted by future music industry professional Karen L. Glover, who post-graduation was editor of Black Beat magazine and a music supervisor for films. Other examples of music genres being played in this era can be found in a list of stolen WPIR records during the 1974-1975 academic year. A 1975 article in Drum, a publication by the Black Students Union of Pratt, digs into “PIR Piracy: The Missing Black Records at WPIR,” and mentions that 37 records (mostly featuring Black artists) went missing between September and April. On the list were albums from jazz musician Ramsey Lewis, soul singer Minnie Riperton, funk rock band Labelle, comedian Franklin Ajaye, and artist Carl Douglas (specifically, his disco release “Kung Fu Fighting”).

1980s Equipment Theft and Revival

WPIR continued as a campus-only broadcaster into the 1980s. According to a 1991 article in The Prattler, “in the early 80’s WPIR was a ‘pirate’ station, broadcasting without the schools [sic] or the FCC’s permission. Then all the equipment was stolen.” The article states that in 1984 a freshman, Janell Genovese, “started it back up from scratch,” overseeing WPIR until 1989, when she passed the job on to Daniel Fries.

WPIR’s Foray into Unlicensed FM Broadcasts

Fries was very interested in taking WPIR to the FM airwaves over very low power. After finding a frequency, he began broadcasts on the far left side of the dial (he thinks 87.9 FM) in November, 1990. Several months later, on April 1, 1991, the FCC sent a letter to higher ups at Pratt, asking that WPIR cease their FM transmissions or risk a $100,000 fine.

At the time, Fries told The Prattler that he was surprised because he had “counseled” with “representatives” who had “deemed the broadcast of WPIR, if low power, unlicensable.” I reached out to Fries and he made some clarifications, explaining that he’d spoken with a consultant as well as with engineers on campus. “We determined that at a very low power we could limit the range pretty easily…I was counseled that under a certain power output it was considered legal without a license,” he said, adding that the plan was to operate legal low power unlicensed broadcasts, complying with FCC’s Part 15 rules. These same regulations under Part 15 are what allow for legal, unlicensed campus-only AM carrier current broadcasts.

A former WPIR staffer wrote a more colorful account some years later on the station’s website, saying that, “…the short-lived glory days were perhaps 3-4 months, where we were heard all over the 5 boroughs. We had a great time anyhow, promoting shows – including bands like Fishbone, They Might Be Giants (Pratt alumni themselves), Swirlies, 24-7 Spies, and so on.” However, Fries maintains that those FM broadcasts were much more limited, with “maybe a mile radius” from Pratt’s Brooklyn campus.

WPIR’s Return to AM

After shutting down its low power FM broadcasts, WPIR planned to go back to AM carrier current and increase awareness of the station on campus. The Prattler noted, “Not many people at Pratt know that this institute has a radio station. Even less know its recent history.”

A former staffer spoke of efforts to continue broadcasting after this setback, writing about this history on the WPIR website (circa 2007), “My wife (the then GM) and I tried to resurrect the station as a campus-only ‘leaky cable’ system, which uses a low-power signal that radiates perhaps 100 feet max from the cable – so it’d be run around campus, down hallways, up elevator shafts, and so on. Never worked out too well, as I couldn’t get the damned cable across Willoughby Avenue! Some sort of hoo-ha permitting that sort of thing, so we gave up.” A 1994 yearbook mentions a return to AM following the whole FCC debacle.

WPIR Transitions Online in the 2000s

The station’s pirate radio past is immortalized in some of the station’s branding, as evidenced by a pirate flag with WPIR call letters hanging in the current studio. With its forays into AM and FM broadcasting behind them, Pratt Radio shifted to internet streaming somewhere between 2001 and 2004 and even introduced podcasts as early as 2006.

WPIR Pratt Radio’s Post-COVID Revival

To current students (as was the case decades ago!), the history of Pratt Radio is very murky. And in the shadow of COVID, just getting WPIR up and running again has been the main focus of their attention. When I met up with four WPIR board members in late March, 2023 they spoke of their work to bring the station back to life. All sophomores at the time (a fifth board member was a senior), they had not experienced Pratt Radio pre-COVID, so much of what they knew about the station came from conversations with upperclassmen and their advisor as well as from digging into past postings on Instagram.

2020 WPIR Frozen in Time

Since WPIR was inactive for a bit, current station participants also had to do some sleuthing in order to get back on social media. However, the station’s wonderfully designed tumblr site remains inaccessible and is frozen in time. One page shows the Spring 2020 schedule, packed with 53 shows, hosted by students, faculty/staff, and alumni. It’s easy to imagine the enthusiasm that everyone had when that schedule was posted at the start of 2020, but of course everything changed that March of 2020. By fall, 2020 shows were being done remotely, with some hosts recording programs using the voice memo app on their phones.

Bringing WPIR Pratt Radio Back in 2022-2023 School Year

As we chatted in the quiet studio (except for a constant hum of construction and periodic banging noises from a sculpture class upstairs) in March, 2023 during a mid-day break in programming, I learned more about what brought this group of people together to help bring back college radio on campus. Lili Leoung Tat described the situation at WPIR in the 2021-2022 school year, telling me that “it was kind of dead” and that “there wasn’t really anyone running it.” In fall 2022, she was part of the group that brought the station back from the “ground up.” Around 45 people signed up to be part of WPIR that semester, with 21 shows making it to “air.” By the spring, the number of shows had increased to 28.

The Allure of College Radio for WPIR’s Student Leaders

Amazingly, this small group of students, new to radio, quickly revived the dormant WPIR. Interestingly, several had relatives, including cousins and parents who had worked in college radio or radio in general. WPIR board member Arzu Oran reflected back on an older cousin who had done college radio, saying “he always seemed so cool,” adding that this was part of her desire to join a college radio station, “especially at an art school” like Pratt.

Coincidentally, fellow board member Eve Mikkelson also had an older cousin who did college radio. She was partially drawn to Pratt Radio because she thought it would be the “perfect way to meet a bunch of people.” The newest board member (she was a week into her term when we all meet in March), Mikkelson talked about how much she enjoys doing her show, “Brooklyn Buzz,” which highlights Brooklyn artists. “Getting to curate what you play and what you say, it’s just a really nice form of expression,” she explained, adding, “You’re picking all your favorite things and you’re getting to share it with as many people as possible.”

Similarly, Oran, who hosts “Kraving Kibbeh,” spoke philosophically about the experience of listening to music “actively,” without distractions. She finds herself doing that much more while participating in college radio at WPIR, where she is more likely to listen to music “fully.” She said, “It feels so nice to actively listen” to both her own program as well as other shows on WPIR.

Building Community at Pratt Institute

In addition to the joy of “doing” radio, the participants at WPIR talked about the satisfaction that they felt in contributing to campus life. “I really like that we’re leaving a mark on the campus, because we’re helping to relaunch the Pratt radio station,” said board member Colin Coffey. He continued, “Hopefully we’ll keep thriving after we graduate…it’s just a nice community that we’ve built.” Leoung Tat agreed, adding that the station community is also building connections with other groups. She mentioned that several clubs have reached out to collaborate with WPIR. One organization, Queer Pratt, inquired about having DJs spin at an event and the student book club asked WPIR to curate playlists for their meetings.

Fall 2023 Shows at WPIR Pratt Radio

WPIR is up and running again this semester, with all four of the board members who I met in the spring still active on the Pratt Radio Board. When I tuned in to the stream in mid-October, 2023, there were 25 shows on the fall schedule running from about noon to 10pm. The broad range of programs include “Eli’s Experimental Hour,” “Jesus Wept,” “Evil Hour,” “Show Tunes Swag,” “Tuning into the 2000s,” “Clowns, Cowboys & Punks,” and more. An edition of “Nocturnal Emissions” that I caught featured bands with under 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, which I thought was an interesting way to feature more underground artists.

Thanks to WPIR Pratt Radio + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to WPIR Pratt Radio for the wonderful visit. Also many thanks to WPIR advisor and Associate Director for the Student Union Alexander Ullman for taking time to speak with me. Additional appreciation goes to Brendan Enright, Project Archivist at the Pratt Institute for research assistance and for digging up some vital materials in the archives. And, finally, thanks to WPIR alum Daniel Fries for sharing his memories with me, helping to shed light on the station’s pirate radio rumors.

This is my 173rd radio station tour report and my 115th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Stay tuned for additional tours from my spring and summer travels.

The post Radio Station Visit #173: College Radio Station WPIR Pratt Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

With killer views from the 7th floor of a building in the heart of New York City, it’s no surprise that DJs at The School of Visual Arts’ (SVA) college radio station WSVA joke about wanting to live at the station. “I would love to have this as my apartment,” said Michelle Mullin, WSVA’s Manager of Operations. Similarly, alumnus Jacob Gardner, who uses they/he pronouns, admitted to napping at the station, especially since their apartment was in another borough. Beyond WSVA being a lovely space physically, the station also feels welcoming to its participants. “There’s actual life in this place,” explained Alice Katok, the station’s Manager of Production, contrasting it with the closet-like conditions of her apartment. Especially after a few isolating years of COVID, it’s clear that students are gravitating to college radio station WSVA in order to be part of a community of like-minded music enthusiasts.

WSVA Punk Show and Community Connections

And that community is growing beyond the walls of WSVA. The station hosted a sold-out punk show in February, 2023 (its first in recent memory) and 70 people showed up. Mullin was impressed by the turn out, saying that she’d never seen more than 30 people at a school event in her time at SVA. Although it was restricted to SVA-affiliated people, they even got some RSVPs from people who aren’t connected with the school. This outside interest was gratifying to WSVA and a sign to them that they are on an upswing.

Katok mentioned that they’ve also been getting communication from more artists and have had to turn down requests from bands to play. Additionally, WSVA has heard from folks at nearby colleges and college radio stations at FIT, Hunter College, NYU, and the New School about possibly collaborating on events. Mullin said that she feels “lucky” that WSVA has so much creative freedom; in part because the station is internet-only.

College Radio Station WSVA Feels Like an Art School

These days, WSVA is buzzing with activity. Gardner said that there were 40 shows in spring 2023 as well as a record number of listeners on the online station’s stream. And, specific attempts to make the station “more accessible” and “less cliquey” are paying off. “I tell everyone I know, you can come here, you don’t have to have a show,” Mullin remarked, adding, “I love coming in…and seeing 10 people in here.” Gardner explained that WSVA is “supposed to be a space that everybody can enjoy,” and pointed out that the station really “feels like an art school.” And it’s true. There’s art everywhere, including random paintings, sculpture projects, drawings on the walls, and a shared notebook packed with sketches. The WSVA Sketchbook was a new addition in February, 2023. Additionally, a “doodle challenge” on the wall of WSVA encourages DJs to “draw your favorite album from memory.”

Looking Back at WSVA During COVID

This creative, in-person energy is quite the contrast to the past few years during COVID. WSVA was completely shut down in spring 2020. By the summer, they had created a virtual studio over Discord and test ran a station on Twitch, where they even held a dance party. By fall, 2020 WSVA was running shows over Twitch. For Gardner, it served as their only social interaction, which they characterized as “commiseration” during an especially challenging time for students.

By fall, 2021, WSVA was back in its 7th floor studio, although work had to be done to spruce it up after it had been sitting idle for over a year. In-person shows resumed in October, 2021, with around 36 programs on the schedule. “I think people were just excited to do anything,” recalled Katok about this reawakening on campus. There were still restrictions in place, with only 3 people allowed in WSVA at a time in fall, 2021. “I was here typically alone,” Katok said.

WSVA Re-Energized in 2022-2023 School Year

However, by the 2022-2023 academic year. WSVA was even more energized, which was quite palpable when I visited in late March, 2023. “I’ve definitely noticed a shift this year,” remarked Katok, adding, “more people are curious” about the radio station. Along with that, WSVA is attracting more attention. Gardner joked that when they started at the school, the radio station was like the “Bigfoot of SVA,” with students not realizing that WSVA even existed. Another positive shift was that some younger staff members were in place this spring, with many of them still in leadership positions in fall, 2023. Having continuity is helpful, especially with the disruption during COVID.

College Radio Station WSVA’s Lively Space

The lively WSVA space is covered with flyers from past events, as well as promotional posters and stickers from prior eras of the station. The on-air studio is sweetly outfitted with a nice leather couch and matching chair, a cute floral armchair, and multi-colored plastic crates full of vinyl records. A red pitchfork is propped in one corner and posters and flyers cover the walls. A handful of CDs sit in the station window, which faces the entryway to the station. Another studio currently serves more like a storage area, but seems like it may have functioned as a production studio or news studio in the past.

These days, WSVA DJs are playing a wide range of genres. The folks who I met up with mentioned playing folk, mid-western emo, 1950s doo-wop, and hardcore. And by this fall, the 37 shows on the schedule included “Love Letter to an LP,” “Emo to the Extremo,” “Fiona’s iPod Shuffle,” “Into the Pit,” “Anti Wave,” “Girlie & Pop,” and more.

Although the WSVA crew recognizes the freedom that affords them as an internet-only college radio station; they also expressed some wistfulness about not having a spot on the terrestrial dial. We chatted about the station formerly being on AM, but not much was known about that time.

The Mysterious History of College Radio Station WSVA

Part of the challenge is that there is no written WSVA history. And the “about us” section of WSVA’s website circa January 2008 is comically spot-on when articulating this lack of a detailed station history. According to the post, “WSVA was founded…well, we actually don’t know when. I’m assuming it was some time in the late 80s or early 90s. Then it was shut down for a while and opened up again sometime in the late 90s. Again, we don’t know exactly when this was.”

Early Days of WSVA: 1980s

While WSVA’s “history is shrouded in mystery,” according to Gardner, there are little kernels of details around the station. Formerly a carrier current radio station at 590 AM, WSVA is rumored to have started in 1970. Throughout the 1980s, the college radio station broadcast over carrier current and into various spaces on campus. Events included a “Battle of the Bands” in spring 1986, with participants selected based on demo tapes. At the time, the station used the branding “WSVA 590 Rock 59.”

One featured program was “Overtones,” which played progressive jazz fusion and new age music. Other shows included the “heavy music” oriented “16 Tons” as well the “Rockin’ Rob Show,” which played new wave music, rock, rap, comedy and interviews. By spring, 1987, it seemed that WSVA’s space had been reduced, with it now occupying only a portion of the 7th floor lounge that was its home. An article SVA’s student newspaper Canvas states, “Our sound can be heard in the incredible shrinking seventh floor lounge Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. We can also be heard in the cafeteria every day from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and soon-to-be in the afternoons as well.”

1980s Programming

Additionally, a new show in spring 1987 was an on-air classifieds-type program, “The Bulletin Board,” which aired at 3:30pm every day. WSVA also offered to buy records from anyone on campus that spring. A local music show, “Homegrown,” began in fall 1986 and by spring, 1987 it had received material from a variety of bands, including The Crunge, Me and My Bro, Norman Bates and the Showerheads, Sidney and the Homewreckers, and the Rescue. In fall, 1987, the station was airing music (including a classical show), hourly newscasts, talk shows, and a comedy show within its mix of programming.

An October, 1989 account in Canvas reported on delays in broadcasting that fall due to an explosion in Gramercy Park and a New York Telephone strike. With new equipment, the station was gearing up to broadcast from 7am to 5pm on weekdays into four SVA buildings: Sloane House and lounges at East 21st Street, East 23rd Street, and West 21st Street.

Early 2000s at College Radio Station WSVA

Posters and stickers at WSVA from the internet era include the spot on the AM dial, suggesting that carrier current persisted into at least the early 2000s. Photographer Noah Kalina was Music Director at WSVA in the early 2000s and posted an anecdote about what the station was like during that time. While at the station he compiled charts to send to the industry publication, CMJ. Coincidentally, years later, he shot a CMJ cover featuring the musician Sia.

On his website, Kalina reflects back on his time at WSVA:

WSVA is a radio station nobody at the school even knew existed. It only broadcast in the school cafeteria which was 3 blocks away and they never had the volume up loud enough to hear it. We basically sat around the station all day making up the music charts we had to send in to CMJ. We would also field calls from all of the music publicists further perpetuating the myth that we were a legitimate radio station. This insured that the station could continue to receive tons and tons of promo CD’s and we could keep our jobs.

There was absolutely no authority so we basically made it up as we went along. It was the best job anybody in college could ever ask for, not to mention it was two flights above the darkrooms. How or why we ever got paid will always remain a mystery.

Judging by the look of the current website (we never had a website) not much has changed. It does however seem like they are doing a really fancy itunes stream. I am so proud of them.

Noah Kalina

Over email, Kalina shared more reminiscences with me, as well as some photos that he took of the station during his time there from 2000 to 2001. He explained that even though WSVA was piped into the cafeteria, it was an underused space, limiting their audience even further. He added, “They said it was in the dorms too, but it wasn’t.” As far as the music of the era, he mentioned, “…we basically had Radiohead KID A on repeat non-stop so that album marks that time for me. Fall/Winter 2000. Unforgettable.” He also recalled that a major renovation took place at WSVA in late April, 2001; which he captured in photos before the work has been completed.

Early Streaming at WSVA Limited to the Campus

While its unclear when internet broadcasting started for WSVA, it does seem that it was initially limited to campus networks. Vintage stickers posted at the radio station include a URL for Pipeline, which likely provided an intranet for the campus, seemingly between 2001 and 2008ish. In 2005, a comment on WSVA’s LiveJournal site said, “SVA should invest in a WSVA server for some sort of podcasting system, allowing for listeners outside of the campus! That’s what I think. Any ideas on implementing such a system?” A post on the station’s website four years later, in fall 2009, indicated that these broadcasts were still “limited to our school’s network.”

By spring 2011, WSVA could be heard streaming “via the magical internet, so listeners are able to tune in all across the world.” Some of these shows from this era were also posted as podcasts as well. Although I’m unsure about when carrier current broadcasting ended for WSVA, it appears that by 2013, the station was only streaming online. They also installed a webcam in 2013 and a few videos can be found on YouTube circa 2017. Also in the early 2000s, there were at least two different ‘zines produced by WSVA, including one called STATIC, and later a webzine called Xzyqunity.

Lore from WSVA’s Past

Mullin, Katok and Gardner were interested to learn more about WSVA’s past and have made attempts at research. Gardner found some recordings of shows circa 2017 and they have had requests from station alumni looking for even earlier archives. Gardner said that they are proud of WSVA alumni like musician Mike Krol. An interview with him is on the current WSVA website and Krol shares some memories of his time at the radio station in the early 2000s.

Rumors of a 1990 Kurt Cobain visit to the station are unverified, but there’s also SVA chatter about artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring (who attended SVA) hanging out in the school cafeteria. A friend of mine, John Devecka, who worked for carrier current equipment manufacturer LPB, recalled visiting WSVA circa 1995-1996 and seeing Keith Haring graffiti in the building’s stairwell. Devecka was there to test the carrier current system as well as to explore the possibility of installing radiating cable FM. Unfortunately with the layout of the building, it was found to be too expensive to shift to FM at that time.

While this mysterious history is alluring, today’s WSVA participants also worry about this lack of awareness of the station’s past. “I don’t want this place to be lost in history,” Katok explained. Mullin added that some of her professors seemed completely unaware of WSVA’s existence; although she noted, “We’ve been alive this whole time.”

During our chat in the spring, Gardner mentioned that WSVA had hoped to do a ‘zine again; so I was excited to see a post calling for writers and ‘zine contributors on the WSVA Instagram in October, 2023. Especially thrilling for me is that history will be part of that ‘zine. The post says, “We want to document the history of the radio station, as well as feature the works of our DJs who make WSVA possible.” I can’t wait to see the finished ‘zine and wish WSVA luck in sleuthing out more stories from its 50+ year history.

Thanks to WSVA + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to everyone at WSVA for the warm welcome and fun visit in March, 2023. I’m also very grateful to Beth Kleber, Head of Archives for the School of Visual Arts Archives for help in locating WSVA material from the 1980s. More thanks to Noah Kalina for sharing memories and photos from his time at WSVA in the early 2000s.

This is my 172nd radio station tour report and my 114th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Stay tuned for additional tours from my spring and summer travels.

The post Radio Station Visit #172: College Radio Station WSVA at The School of Visual Arts appeared first on Radio Survivor.

I felt nostalgia for so many different eras of college radio during a visit to Sarah Lawrence College’s student-run radio station WSLC in Bronxville, New York. Located in beautiful Bates Hall, built in 1928 as one of the college’s first buildings, the station’s large windows afford DJs fresh air and a view of the lush campus. A black and white studio photo on the wall is a reminder of the station’s beginnings as carrier current station W-SLC launched by students over 640AM on February 4, 1946. At the time Sarah Lawrence was a women’s college, putting Radio Sarah Lawrence in the company of a small number of 1940s college radio stations led by women.

College Radio Station WSLC Launched by Students in 1946

An October 1945 article in The Campus talks about the origins of the station, writing, “A proposal for Sarah Lawrence to have its own radio station, presently known as Radio Sarah Lawrence, will come before the student body in the next all-student meeting. Alison Stacey and Leni Keir originated the idea and are seeking student support.” Apparently they encountered naysayers along the way, with, The Campus reporting in 1947 that Radio Sarah Lawrence “…was originally built because Harvard laughed at Sarah Lawrence and said ‘Sarah Lawrence couldn’t build or run a radio station, the students would be far too busy polishing their nails and meeting under the clock.'”

Radio Drifts Away and Returns in the Late 1990s

An active radio station that aired poetry, music, comedy, and even a rebroadcast of a campus talk by Eleanor Roosevelt (in 1951), WSLC seems to have drifted away within just a few years. Students made efforts to launch FM stations in the late 1970s and early 1980s and explored starting an AM station in the early 1990s. By 1998, students were honing in on the idea of doing a radiating cable station, along the lines of what college radio station WAKE FM at Wake Forest University was doing at the time. An early WSLC website from 1998 states that, “This system will allow us to broadcast to an area of about five hundred feet away from any on-campus building.”

And, then, by summer 1999, a new WSLC was built in the basement of Robinson and began broadcasting to the campus over 105.7 FM, radiating cable and then “through streaming audio,” according to a 2000 post on Sarah Lawrence’s early student-run server, Raptor. By January 2013, the station operated from the basement of the communications building (presumably Robinson) and was broadcasting online from 5pm to 2am. And, then, by fall 2013, WSLC had moved to the second floor of Bates, where the station remains today.

Peeking at WSLC through a Porthole in 2023

Decades later, the current iteration of WSLC broadcasts out of the same building where the station began 77 years ago. From the Bates hallway, one can peek through a small porthole window and spy Shaun Cassidy and Belle and Sebastian posters hanging on baby blue walls. The radio studio set-up is in full view, with a retro wooden-framed grayish blue dorm couch against one wall. Most dramatic of all is the bright, multicolored abstract patterned carpet that is so iconic that it inspired a WSLC sticker design.

Returning from COVID with Packed Schedule and Live Events

The streaming radio station airs 64 weekly shows, with an impressive roster of 74 DJs. WSLC Operations Manager Henry Burch said that the “packed schedule” during the 2022-2023 school year is a marked improvement from the prior year, which was still very much under the cloud of COVID-19 fears and restrictions. He explained that “COVID really crippled the station,” especially because people were forced to isolate from others. In turn, that made it more difficult to develop a sense of community at WSLC.

On an upswing, WSLC has been working hard since last spring to not only revamp the station, but to also do more events. Flyers were posted all over campus for a show happening the day after my visit. Connecticut queercore band Space Camp and New Jersey “weirdo hardcore” band Final Resting Pose played at the Black Squirrel (a former student hangout, but now a classroom) at Sarah Lawrence. Burch expressed excitement for the event and explained that WSLC is still figuring out which campus spaces work best for shows.

An event in February with “hyper pop” artist Gabby Start and Lux Deluxe was held in MacCracken Dance Studio. Flyers alerted attendees: “Shoes Off!,” in an attempt to protect the dance studio floor. Burch said that they’ve been doing around a show a month, with increasing success and “positive feedback.” He added that not only is it great to be able to see live music at Sarah Lawrence, but that these shows are also helping to build the WSLC community AND bring a feeling of community back to the campus at large.

Thriving College Radio Community in 2023

Meanwhile, inside the station, there are also signs of a thriving community. A WSLC log book sits on the desk, filled with handwritten playlists and doodles. An intentional tool to get DJs interacting with one another, its pages highlight the creativity and personality of WSLC participants. And it’s a big change from Burch’s first year at the station in the 2021-2022 school year, which he described as being a more “individual” experience. At the time he hosted the last show of the night, “Old World Underground,” and his only human interaction was with the DJ before him.

Appreciation for Physical Music at WSLC

In addition to working to build connections between DJs and the campus, WSLC has also made studio improvements. Expanding its library of physical music, the station has also revamped its equipment so that DJs can play vinyl records again (in addition to cassettes, CDs and digital music). The station’s small collection of LPs is on a shelf with plastic record dividers labeled “disco,” “soundtracks,” “jazz” and “80s synth pop bullshit.”

Black shelves house CDs, with more in boxes. Burch worked with WSLC’s General Manager Sam Wojcik to augment the collection. He said that maybe half of the DJs are using physical music, but noted that this has been steadily increasing. He pointed out that all the DJs have been trained on how to use physical media and that more have been getting comfortable with playing records and CDs.

Already a radio veteran when he arrived at Sarah Lawrence, Burch said, “I think physical music is an important part of the radio experience.” While in high school, he DJ’d at community radio station WXNA in Nashville, telling me that that’s where he “fell in love” with radio. That experience prompted him to join WSLC his first year of college. Whereas in high school he played a big variety of music on his shared show; at WSLC he’s tried to develop themes for each of his radio programs. Last year he showcased independent music, playing material that may not have been as familiar to listeners.

Variety of Shows at WSLC

Although Burch’s show last year leaned more indie, WSLC programs run the gamut. Burch said that they try to get DJs to play material that’s “more out there,” but that the schedule is “diverse,” with DJs playing “everything,” without many restrictions. Being a streaming radio station, they also have the freedom to play some material that FCC-regulated stations shy away from. Burch said that each DJ works to put forth a show that is unique and an extension of the host’s personality.

The current WSLC schedule includes shows playing “pop music from the left of center,” dark folk, country, heavy sounds, music by black artists, music made by women, “meteorological music,” shoegaze, music by Canadian artists, alternative and indie music by Latinx artists, and more. Show names are also reflective of the diversity and creativity of show hosts. “Eyebrows R Overrated,” “James Joyce was a Punk Rocker,” “Lady Bird Complex,” “The Radiation Exposure Surveillance NonForProfit (RESN)” (with DJ Leaking and Pooling & DJ Ooze), and “music to listen to anywhere but the airport” are a few of the highlights.

As I wrapped up my visit, Burch reflected on why WSLC is such a special place, telling me that he’d made some of his best friends there. “It feels so good to be part of a radio community,” he said, adding, “I feel like I’m supposed to be here.”

Thanks to WSLC + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks so much to Henry Burch for showing me around WSLC and to Sarah Lawrence College Archivist Christina Kasman for providing me with materials related to WSLC history! This is my 171st radio station tour report and my 113th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Stay tuned for additional tours from my East Coast travels.

The post Radio Station Visit #171: College Radio Station WSLC at Sarah Lawrence College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Tucked away on the 3rd floor of the Campus Center at Brown University is a college radio station with a fascinating history. BSR (Brown Student and Community Radio) currently broadcasts online and over 101.1 FM in Providence, Rhode Island, with call letters WBRU-LP, but it is the descendant of likely the first AM carrier current college radio station in the United States: The Brown Network. Because of this rich history, I was eager to visit and sleuth out snippets from BSR’s past.

Walking into BSR on a Friday afternoon at the start of spring break in March 2023, I found myself in a large open room with CD-filled shelving, a bright orange couch, upholstered chairs with an abstract pattern in lemon yellow and white, and tables stacked with music-filled mail bins. A window looks into the broadcast studio and across the hall from that is a jam-packed office containing files and ephemera. Vintage black and white photos hang on the wall above the entry way and a decades old LPB broadcast console is prominently displayed in front of the studio window.

Josie Bleakley, one of three BSR Station Managers, was excited to show me various artifacts, including boxes of early photos and bins full of cassettes and mix tapes from local bands. Last year she started working on a project to archive and digitize some of this material. With about 20,000 pieces of music in the library, the project is “daunting,” but she explained that some of the music from local artists is not online, making the very DIY cassettes at BSR an important piece of Providence music history. A couple that she pulled out of a bin were especially charming. One had a handmade sleeve crafted from furry fabric and another, by the band Thieves, featured a screen printed design on a cloth bag.

Recent History at BSR

Bleakley became even more “fascinated” with radio history, especially BSR’s history, during a radio history class with Professor of American Studies Susan Smulyan at Brown. During the week focusing on college radio, the class met at BSR, learning about the history of radio on campus. For a class project, Bleakley created an update about the more recent years of the radio station, interviewing people who had been involved with BSR through COVID. “It feels like watching the history of radio unfolding,” she added, as we talked about the ups and downs of the station, including recent challenges.

Arriving at Brown in fall 2019, Bleakley learned about BSR during the fall Activities Fair the first week of freshman year and joined the station right away. Having just moved across the country for college, she found herself drawn to the promise of a community of liked-minded music fans. By March 2020 she had started her radio training and was gearing up to go on the air. But everything changed when the school and the station was shut down at the start of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the station closure also put a halt on some planned studio repairs, which were delayed even further with supply-chain issues. So, for a time, the BSR studio was both inaccessible and unusable.

Returning to In-person Radio after COVID

By fall, 2020 Bleakley returned to campus along with maybe 1000 students. BSR had been running automated programming, playing a mix of music without DJs. By the 2021-2022 school year, DJs could do remotes shows. BSR was operating with a smaller group of DJs and leaders and with the studio still not functioning, it was difficult to recruit participants.

Finally, in fall 2022, with the BSR studio operational again (repairs were completed in September, 2022), the station saw a “big uptick” in interest. Bleakley added that a lot of first and second year students are involved now and training is ongoing for many open shifts, noting that a “silver lining” to the shutdown was that now BSR is even more accessible. Additionally, non-student community members are now allowed to come back to BSR, bringing with them their “historical knowledge” of the station. “Anyone who wants to be involved can be,” she said, contrasting that with her experience as a first year student, when there was more competition and more hurdles to getting on the air. At that time, in 2019, one had to start out with an internet-only show the first semester, before being given an opportunity to broadcast over FM.

The changes in the station culture in just a few years are remarkable. Looking back on when she started at BSR in 2019, Bleakley recalled that it was “lively” and “active,” but that she also felt out of her depth as far as music, radio, and programming. Less exclusive of a place now, since they are rebuilding their community, the current BSR is reflective of what she thinks college radio should be all about: a station for “all of the students.”

History of BSR and College Radio at Brown University

Brown University has a storied relationship with wireless communication (read more about that on the Rhode Island Radio website) and college radio, with student-led campus radio efforts beginning in 1936. This early carrier current radio station helped to spawn countless campus-only AM stations all over the United States, leading to the growth of college radio. Eventually splitting into two separate radio stations; Brown’s student broadcasting work continues today with WBRU and BSR.

First launched in 1936 from a dorm room, the Brown Network broadcast to residence halls and other campus buildings using wires and building infrastructure to facilitate transmission. A 1941 Providence Journal article explained that the Brown Network “uses the electric light system of the university for distributing its programs. Wires from a four-watt transmitter are strung through steam tunnels and connected to the lighting system by condensers.” The AM station broadcast from the top floor of Faunce House by this time.

Beginnings of Carrier Current College Radio

The Brown Network’s student founders enthusiastically spread the word about campus radio, inspiring others to build carrier current stations at colleges all over the country. In 1940, they helped to launch the college radio organization, Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) in order to build a broader college radio community. IBS still exists today and continues to hold annual conventions in New York City.

I’m always interested to hear details about women’s roles in college radio in the early 20th century and was pleased to learn that women were active participants in radio at Brown. According to a history of the station, “Pembroke women had first joined the Brown Network as announcers and administrators in 1939, when broadcasting on the Pembroke College campus began. Determined to stay afloat during World War II, the Brown Network allowed Pembrokers to join in full force as programmers, news announcers, engineers, and business managers.” Louis Bloch writes in Gas Pipe Networks: A History of College Radio 1936-1946, that “Jean Bruce ’40 was in charge of the thirty Pembroke women working on the Brown Network.”

WBRU-FM Launches; WBRU-AM Remains on Carrier Current

The Brown Network referred to itself as BUBC (Brown University Broadcasting Company) until 1945, when it changed its call letters to WBRU. In 1966, an FM signal was secured and WBRU-FM was born as a commercial station. WBRU-AM continued as a carrier current campus radio station, but seemed to have an increasingly lower profile. “By the 1970s, WBRU-AM was known for original music and entertainment programming. The 1980s Brain Bowl quiz show stood out for its free-form style. But as the FM market grew competitive, WBRU-AM became a low priority for staffers. Buildings renovated with steel and concrete made the weak AM signal virtually inaudible,” according to a history of the station.

WBRU-AM Rebrands as Brown Student Radio; Heads to FM and Online

WBRU-AM apparently struggled in the 1980s and was revitalized by the mid 1990s, with a station history explaining that in 1994 “…outgoing managers at WBRU-AM handed leadership to a group of freshmen determined to revive the defunct station,” which students viewed “as an outlet for less commercial music.” By the following year, WBRU-AM had signed an agreement to broadcast sports over Wheeler School station WELH 88.1 FM and rebranded itself as Brown Student Radio (BSR). Within a few years it had acquired more airtime and was broadcasting on 88.1 FM on weeknights beginning in November, 1997.

In 2011, BSR lost its lease of airtime on 88.1 FM, but continued as an internet-only station. Then, a few years later, BSR took advantage of the low power FM opportunity and applied for a license of its own. Meanwhile, WBRU-FM ended up selling its 95.5 FM license to a Christian broadcasting group in 2017. By 2018, BSR had returned to the FM airwaves with its new LPFM license for WBRU-LP at 101.1 FM. In an interesting twist, some of the old WBRU-FM’s programming (notably 360 Degrees Experience in Sound, focusing on R&B, hip hop, Afrobeats, reggae and more) now airs over BSR’s low power signal.

2023 and Beyond

Flashing forward to today, Bleakley is thrilled to have the station back in a physical space after the challenges of the pandemic and emphasized the importance of community for college radio. She also explained that college radio has always been about making connections and that she was inspired by BSR’s history, particularly learning about the time when radio was the main form of connection. Contrasting that with podcasts, she described conversations they had during her radio history class about the “universal connecting appeal” of radio at Brown, with everyone in their dorm rooms tuning in to the station at the same time in its early years. Nostalgic for those “gas pipe network” days of carrier current radio, she said that it would be “so fun” to once again broadcast to campus in that manner.

One challenge with that gas pipe fantasy is that most students don’t have radios. Acknowledging this, she was also plotting ways to get portable radios into more people’s hands. As we poked around the station, she showed me a crystal radio that she’d recently built on a field trip to the New England Wireless and Steam Museum; again hearkening back to radio’s early DIY days.

Vinyl records in the broadcast studio are another sign of radio and station history. Although not as commonly used these days at BSR, Bleakley remarked that a current DJ is interested in doing an all-vinyl show. With around 20 DJs this spring, at the time of my visit, BSR was in the midst of a recruitment period for various positions at the station. Shows on the schedule include Tanvi’s Tunes (“local indie rock to 80’s british feminist punk”), “Crushed Little Songs,” “Spoiler Alert Radio” (“Conversations on the craft of filmmaking”), “The Beat Surrender,” “Trending Globally,” “Donne del Mondo” (“Global music by women, celebrating musical women of the world”), “Cook Out!” (“Charlie and Laurie share their whimsy and fun with the masses”), and more.

Thanks to BSR + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks so much to Josie Bleakley for showing me around BSR and talking to me about the station’s past and present activities. This is my 170th radio station tour report and my 112th college radio station recap. You can see all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Very soon I will be posting more tours from my East Coast travels.

The post Radio Station Visit #170: College Radio Station BSR at Brown University appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On a crisp November afternoon, I marveled at the autumnal beauty at Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. Bright red leaves clung to the trees within view of Ward Manor, a gorgeous 1916 mansion that is now a residence hall and home to college radio station WXBC. Tamar Faggen, WXBC’s General Director enthusiastically greeted me and led me downstairs to the station’s digs in the basement.

Already feeling like old friends since we’d chatted over email about our shared interest in college radio history, the visit was full of rushed and excited conversation about Faggen’s discoveries related to WXBC’s storied past. A Bard College senior, Faggen was inspired so much by her work at the station, that she decided to write her thesis about the history of WXBC. She shared photos and audio from the station’s past and we talked about the twists and turns when researching a radio station. “WXBC has had many cycles of collapse and rejuvenation over its 75 year history,” she explained. It’s a statement that could be applied to so many college radio stations that have ever-changing staffs of student volunteers.

Brief History of College Radio Station WXBC

Students launched WXCB (“x” for experimental and “bc” for Bard College) in 1947 as an AM carrier current station. Bard College Archives and Special Collections has posted amazing photos from those early days, including shots of student performances and of the studio set-up. AM broadcasts continued for decades, with WXBC’s website circa 2003 stating, “We broadcast on frequency 540AM from the top of Stevenson Gymnanium [sic]at a whopping 10 watts.” By 2007, the website describes the broadcasts as 5 watts over “a legally-operating, unlicenced [sic] radio signal on 540AM.” Those AM transmissions seem to have ceased by 2008, with WXBC’s website stating late that year, “For the convenience of all listeners, WXBC broadcasts online at wxbc.bard.edu. We are not currently broadcasting at 540 AM.”

WXBC in the 2000s

As far back as 2002, WXBC was streaming online, as it is today. In order to address technical issues and changing needs, Faggen helped to relaunch the station’s stream in October, 2021. That followed a down period for WXBC, which coincided with the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Faggen recalled that when she transferred to Bard College in fall 2020, she heard about the radio station from a friend while they were both quarantined in the same hotel. He was one of the heads of WXBC and relayed to Faggen the challenges they were having getting the station up and running again. “It just fell apart,” Faggen explained, telling me that the station did not broadcast in fall 2019 or spring 2020. By fall 2020, the station came back, but had limited participation.

Relaunching the Station in 2021

After DJing for two semester, Faggen and another fellow WXBC participant, Ray Camp, were asked to head up the station. One of the first things that they did was restructure the organization, so that there were more roles than just the two club heads. Faggen added that they spent a lot of time “researching and planning how to bring the station back to life,” which in large part meant finding a new streaming service. WXBC went with Mixlr, in particular because it offered a chat feature and the ability to record shows. When the station relaunched on October 1, 2021 for World College Radio Day, there were 35 DJs, up from 7 the year before.

Alumni Outreach Leads to Exploration of WXBC’s History

In preparation for that World College Radio Day broadcast (for which WXBC was a featured station in a global marathon), WXBC reached out to the Bard alumni office in order to obtain recollections from former station participants. Faggen was blown away by the response and the number of stories that were sent in, telling me, “that kind of started this question for me of ‘I wonder what the history of WXBC is?'” As a result of that initial alumni outreach, they heard from WXBC members who had been involved with the station as far back as the 1940s, with one even donating a copy of his radio show as well as transcripts and newspaper clippings. “This was a really big moment for us,” Faggen explained. And it’s clear that building connections with alumni and learning more about the station’s history has helped to generate excitement and enthusiasm at WXBC.

Growing Interest in WXBC

Faggen was upbeat about WXBC continuing to grow during this school year (2022-2023), with more staff being brought on, including a new Tech Director. She said that each semester there are more programs, including more diversity in the schedule. “I’m really proud of how the station was able to survive the pandemic,” she said, adding, “I think that killed a lot of college radio, but for me…I really discovered the passion that I had for the power of the human voice.” Describing that period of extreme isolation during COVID-19, Faggen pointed out the potential of radio. “This is something we can use to connect with the rest of the campus. Everyone’s alone in their dorm room, but we can all connect,” she said.

And with WXBC’s stream now on a platform with a chat feature, shows have become even more interactive, with lots of commentary between DJs and their listeners. Faggen said she’d love to have the station on FM, but was savvy about the downsides. With a scarcity of licenses, a lengthy process, and student turnover; it just didn’t seem like a viable option. And, indeed, previous attempts to go FM never came to fruition. A group at Bard College even acquired a license in 2007 (WLHV-FM), which it gave up in 2012 before building a station. In contrast, WXBC’s current status as a streaming station, free of FCC rules, provides them with more flexibility. “There’s a freedom that I think is really powerful about it,” Faggen explained. And with more than 50,000 listens in the year following the relaunch, the WXBC crew was feeling good. The number of DJs was rising too, up to 47 in November, 2022, chosen from more than 75 applications.

Packed Schedule and Wide Range of Radio Shows

The WXBC schedule is packed with 2-hour shifts from 6am to 2am, 7 days a week. A hold-over from COVID is a one-hour break between shows, to allow for a buffer between DJs. Although this interval began as a safety precaution, it has continued because people enjoy the smoother transition to the following show. This schedule also allows DJs and hosts to stay on the air a bit longer if they choose.

The line-up of programs is great mix and many shows are full of personality. Some of the spring 2023 shows include “Snot Rocket,” “Quantum Healing Sounds,” The Worst Show,” “Liminal Waves,” and “Teenage Kicks.” Airing the day before Halloween, “A History of Goth: Freak History Radio Night,” was one show that captivated me. A historically-based investigation of the concept of “goth” as well as goth music, the show made me think about goth in a different way. The host traced goth music back to the Doors, the Velvet Underground, Roxie Music, David Bowie, and Brian Eno. And I was surprised to hear Alice Cooper mentioned as one of the proto-goth musicians. His song “Dead Babies” was played as evidence of that and it was a convincing example of an artist playing around with ideas that came to fruition with later bands like Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

WXBC’s Vibrant Basement Home

In addition to the vibrant sound of WXBC, the station space is also full of life. An artistic display of the station’s call letters is perched on a shelf, with each block letter decorated in a unique style. One is covered in moss, another plastered with googly eyes, and the most fanciful features a collage of tiny boob photos, likely cut out of magazines.

Colorful streamers adorn the wall above the studio equipment and a nearby shelf was full of decorations, trinkets, and music books. A Donna Summer tape sat near stacks of 45s and shelves of CDs and vinyl records. And those pieces of music aren’t just relics from the past, DJs can and do play physical music, although “a lot of DJs use Spotify,” according to Faggen. WXBC is outfitted with a tape deck, turntable, and CD players and Faggen confirmed that there are DJs who even play cassette tapes. She added that there’s been a shift in the past few years, with many of the newer DJs using “vinyl and CD equally to digital audio files. It’s about 50/50.”

Plans are afoot to revamp an additional WXBC room down the hall. Shut down during the pandemic, it has served a variety of functions over the years, from a lounge to a recording studio. It is hoped that it can eventually be used as a “live room” for music performances in the future.

Thanks to WXBC + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to WXBC’s Tamar Faggen for the visit and ongoing conversations about college radio history. She and I will both be speaking at the upcoming Radio Preservation Task Force Conference at the Library of Congress. Please join us at the event if you want to hear more about college radio history, including Faggen’s discoveries about WXBC’s past. This is my 169th radio station tour report and my 111th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. And watch this space for additional tours in the next few months.

The post Radio Station Visit #169: Bard College Radio Station WXBC appeared first on Radio Survivor.

To say that my visit to college radio station WRUC 89.7 FM at Union College in Schenectady, New York was eagerly anticipated is an understatement. Rumored to be the “first” commercial college radio station, its predecessor stations have a fascinating history, making Union College an important stop for every college radio historian. Lucky for me, my trip to the school in November, 2022 included a visit to Special Collections and Archives at Union College’s Schaffer Library, which contains an enviable array of materials documenting the early days of student radio in the 1920s and beyond.

Snapshot of WRUC’s History

Like many college radio stations circa 2023, WRUC has had quite the journey, with many twists and turns along the way as far as its role on campus and its method of transmission. Currently broadcasting over 89.7 FM, WRUC has been a licensed FM station since 1975. Prior to that, student radio at Union College was transmitted by carrier current (starting in 1941, with call letters WRUC eventually adopted). But the early radio activities at Union College, beginning with experiments and amateur broadcasts, are especially fascinating and worthy of a much longer article.

Union College Radio Club Began in 1915

Radio experiments were happening at Union College since radio’s earliest days and the first campus Radio Club began in 1915, according to “Radio Broadcasting at Union College: A Brief History,” written by Rowan Wakefield in 1959. But what happened in 1920 is an important part of WRUC’s long-time branding as “first” in the nation. Its current website states, that WRUC “is the first commercial college radio station in the country.” While this specific claim has been debated (the first licensed broadcast station at Union was called WRL and was very short-lived), the early radio activities by students at Union College are impressive and worthy of more attention by radio scholars.

Union College Radio Club’s First Music Concert over Radio in 1920

As was the case with other early broadcasters, Union College’s Radio Club began with experiments over amateur radio. Significantly, on October 14, 1920, students in the club broadcast a short concert of music over the radio. In a piece previewing this event a few days prior, the student newspaper wrote:

If for the next week you hear noise a thunder every time you try to phone, you know the electric jazz experts are tuning up. And they are some jazz experts with high powers spark discharges. Starting next Thursday night, the radio club will give a concert via radio…This will be a weekly habit. If at some future time you have a dance on hand and your jazz artists fail you, call up 2 A D D tell them your trouble and if you’ve got a hairpin, a wire, a coil or two and a phone you will have al the music you wish via radio. (Concordiensis, October 12, 1920)

Following the successful first radio concert, headlines in the Concordiensis proclaimed, “Aerial Concert is First in Collegiate History” and “Ethereal Recitals Will be Given Weekly in Future.” An accompanying article states, “Transmitting the music from a phonograph into the receiver of a wireless telephone and then to amateur radio operators within a radius of 50 miles, members of the Union College Radio Club Thursday night gave what is believed to be the first wireless musical concert of an American college organization.” The paper reported that “vocal and instrumental records” were played.

The Role of Radio Prodigy Wendell W. King

Another notable aspect of this early broadcast is that the amateur station call letters used, 2ADD, were those of radio prodigy Wendell W. King, who started his own amateur station at the age of 12 and was “the first black student to attend Union for a significant length of time,” according to an article in the Encyclopedia of Union College History. The article points out that, “King had been involved with amateur radio since 1911 and may have been the most technically proficient student connected with early Union radio; he had already been president of the Troy Amateur Radio Club, had served in the Army Signals Corps, and had worked for the radio section of General Electric.” A profile of King in Union College Magazine outlines his achievements and also his “complicated time on campus.”

Experimental Station 2XQ and Continued Music Broadcasts

The Radio Club at Union College continued to do regular Thursday night music broadcasts over amateur radio and over its experimental station 2XQ (which it received a license for in 1919) and received letters from listeners who wrote in to report that they had heard and were enjoying the transmissions. In addition to those weekly broadcasts, the club did various “stunts,” including outfitting a baby carriage with a radio set. Radio Church services were also broadcast, including hymns played over a phonograph and “songs by a college quartet,” according to a report in the Schenectady Gazette on May 12, 1921. Another accomplishment in May 1921 was “the wireless transmission of the junior ‘prom’ music…which was the signal for hundreds of dances in this section of the country,” wrote the Schenectady Gazette. In advance of the prom, the Union College student newspaper Concordiensis reported that “The music of Ford Dabney’s Syncopated Orchestra of Ziegfield Midnight Frolic fame will be heard as far west as Nebraska and by ships far out at sea.” The event was an overnight affair, going from 10:30pm until 6am.

It’s difficult to ascertain if this was the first Radio Club on a college campus to regularly play music over the radio. Other stations had broadcast music over wireless prior to that time, but it’s unclear if this was happening with undergraduate students at the helm, as was the case at Union College. One very early example of music broadcasts over amateur radio took place at The Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless, which launched in San Jose, California in 1909. John Schneider writes, “Once [Doc] Herrold realized he had an audience of eager radio experimenters, he began to entertain them. He would discuss news items and read clippings from the newspaper, or play records from his phonograph. This got to be a more and more important part of the school’s operations, and regular programs were heard from the station as early as 1910.”

Broadcast Station WRL

In addition to these early broadcasts, Union College was one of the first colleges to obtain a limited commercial license to operate a broadcast station. The license for WRL was issued in March, 1922 and was held by Union College until 1924. Only a few other stations operating at colleges or universities obtained this type of broadcast license earlier, including University of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin (both in January, 1922). After the WRL license expired, students at Union College did not run a broadcast station until launching an AM carrier current station in 1941.

100 Years Later: The State of WRUC in the 2020s

While the history of WRUC has been documented and celebrated, the station’s present state was more nebulous to me prior to my visit. The program schedule on the website was out of date and the internet stream was down. Social media had also been fairly quiet. So, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As it turns out, WRUC has had challenges similar to those faced by many college radio stations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While visiting the WRUC archives with me, WRUC’s Senior General Manager Maya Gempler traced the station’s recent history, telling me that when she joined WRUC in fall, 2019, it was “fairly active,” with maybe 30 shows as well as a presence on campus through live events. Everything changed as students were sent home at the end of winter term in 2020, with WRUC “dying off” in the spring 2020 trimester. With no remote access capabilities, the programming that ran over WRUC during that time was whatever students had left running on automation.

Returning to the WRUC Studios in Fall 2020

By fall, 2020, most students were back on campus at Union College, but Gempler explained that it was a strange “weird, lonely, isolating experience,” with many school events online rather than in person due to COVID. WRUC worked with the campus Health and Safety office to come up with protocols for using the station and instituted some new rules that limited the number of people in the studio, instituted spacing between shows, and also required DJs to clean before and after their shows. Those requirements continued through that academic year.

Struggles in the 2021-2022 School Year

At WRUC, it was a return to more normal operations in fall 2021, but Gempler said that the number of participants had dwindled to only three people on the executive board and maybe 10 to 15 shows. By the winter of 2022, technical issues completely shut the station down from February through June, with no shows running for a big chunk of the spring. Although WRUC continued to do live events, Gempler explained that WRUC’s presence on campus was greatly diminished.

New Equipment and Optimism at WRUC in Fall 2022

After new equipment was set up in the summer of 2022, WRUC was able to return in the fall with 42 shows on the schedule, much like in the time before COVID. While the FM broadcast returned, issues with the internet stream remained, meaning that the primary way to hear the station was over terrestrial radio. I asked how most students listened to WRUC these days and Gempler said that they didn’t really know and that it’s been “frustrating” to not have the stream working. Junior General Manager Sadie Hill said that people in the local air listen over 89.7 FM and added that she also has friends with car radios who listen terrestrially.

Gempler explained that WRUC’s student DJs seem more interested in the “experience” of having a show rather than worrying about who is listening. One way that students can and do listen to WRUC is through speakers that pipe the station’s audio in to the Reamer Campus Center. WRUC’s main studio is dubbed the “fishbowl,” and has windows facing a bustling section of the Campus Center. DJs have the option of turning the speakers on or off, depending on their comfort level with having their programs broadcast to the fellow students who are visible from the booth. Some students also broadcast their shows over social media, like Instagram Live.

WRUC’s Two Studios

At the time of my visit, most WRUC shows were music-based, with a handful of sports shows as well. Gempler was pushing for more talk programming and told me that there were a lot of great ideas floating around for possible shows. Worried for a time that WRUC could disappear during the pandemic, she was feeling more optimistic when we spoke, saying she was excited about the station’s future. One possibility was a complete renovation of studio spaces. During my visit, WRUC was only broadcasting from its “fishbowl” studio, although it also had another space upstairs, which was not functional at the time. Some of the big dreams for WRUC include both live broadcasting and recording studios so that students could record podcasts, produce music, and broadcast live music.

WRUC’s upstairs studio has been around for decades and was eerily similar to my own college radio station’s layout from the 1980s (although built maybe 20 years earlier). A record room was long gone and I was sad to hear that at one point WRUC may have had upwards of 100,000 albums. Around the time of the “CD revolution,” when “vinyl was not a thing,” the records were in bad shape, according to Matt Milless, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Campus & Community Engagement at Union College.

The fragmented studio space is an interesting challenge at WRUC. Milless revealed that the “fishbowl” studio (which used to be an information desk where students could also rent videos and DVDs) was taken over by WRUC many years ago in order to have a stronger campus presence. He explained that he put in that studio in order to help “spark interest” in WRUC. He said that during some years students were enthusiastic about being seen while doing their shows, whereas other prefer to have more privacy. In reflecting on that time, he said, “we were trying to save radio.”

Growing Student Interest for WRUC

And it would seem that in the 2022-2023 school year, there’s a renewed energy around saving WRUC. The station’s Junior General Manager Sadie Hill said that the station’s executive board is “very passionate about making WRUC cool again.” And it’s a very good sign that during a Club Fair prior to my visit in the fall, around 200 people signed up to join the station, with around 30 to 40 shows making it to the WRUC schedule as a result. The range of shows includes a sports talk program focused on football and music shows that play indie rock, Bollywood music, and more. Union College president David Harris even came on the air in fall 2022 to do show where he picked out music alongside a member of the station’s executive board. The show was broadcast as well as transmitted over the president’s account on Instagram Live.

Passionate about college radio before she even arrived at Union College, Hill revealed, “I’ve always wanted to do college radio” and shared that her dad had a midnight radio show in the past. Influenced by him, she plays a lot of older music and classic rock on her WRUC show. Hill also does theme shows, ranging from songs about colors to a show about female rock stars. She expressed pride in Union College’s long radio history and also was enthusiastic about the opportunities and freedom available to students at WRUC today, saying, “the rule is no dead air.” She said that she appreciates the way that WRUC DJs express themselves through music, even if the station is “playing to nowhere.”

Like many in college, radio Hill said the thing that she loves about WRUC is “mostly the people,” adding that she felt like she was brought into the community and has developed friendships as a result. Similarly, WRUC’s Senior General Manager Maya Gempler shared, “I love that it involves students from so many different areas on campus,” including people from a variety of majors. She added that it’s inspiring that WRUC provides space for people to get together and get involved.

Thanks to WRUC + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to everyone at WRUC and to the staff of Special Collections at Schaffer Library, Union College for the wonderful visit. I’ll have more to share about the early days of radio experiments at Union College in future posts and in some upcoming conference presentations. This is my 168th radio station tour report and my 110th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. And watch this space for additional tours from my travels in New York state.

The post Radio Station Visit #168: Union College Radio Station WRUC appeared first on Radio Survivor.

College radio stations are generally very welcoming spaces, so much so that I often have to tear myself away at the end of a visit. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s WRPI 91.5 FM in Troy, New York had that effect on me. It had it all: comfy couches, the requisite Leo Blais sign, shelves of vinyl records, a meticulously organized engineering room, and a historical timeline (with photos!) on the wall.

WRPI felt like home, as it has a lot of the things that I love about college radio and college radio stations. But, as is the case whenever I tour stations, what really left a lasting impression on me were the people and the passion that they have for their station.

College Radio Reviving after COVID-19 Restrictions Ease

Lemon (Program Director) and Mei (On-Campus PR Manager) were my tour guides at WRPI during my November, 2022 visit. Both juniors, they were freshmen at Rensselaer during the 2020-2021 school year; a very strange time to be beginning college during the height of a pandemic. As I saw with all of my stations tours this past fall, college radio stations like WRPI had to make serious adjustments in 2020 and are still adapting as COVID-19 restrictions loosen. It’s apparent that the social aspects of college radio and college radio spaces are especially appealing now, since gathering with peers was severely limited for many students over the past few years.

First-year students are often introduced to WRPI during an orientation event called Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond (NRB). The station is one of the student clubs that invites students to come by for a half day or a day for a closer look at what they do. This past fall, WRPI had students go through a series of rotations to check out the technology, the live room, and the on-air studio. Mei explained that they showed the entire broadcasting set-up, with students exploring “every corner” of the station. It’s a huge recruitment tool for WRPI, with 70 to 80 students expressing interest in WRPI during the last session. Around 40 people stuck around until the end of the day and they were even given the chance to play music and talk over the air. “It’s a way to get people hooked,” Lemon added.

The Allure of WRPI for Students

Lemon outlined many of the attributes of WRPI that are a draw for students, pointing out the old equipment that they can work with and repair, the opportunity to broadcast to a 75 mile radius, the ability to mix music and bring in live bands, and the lounge area which is a “great place to hang out.” Mei said that the lounge stays open through the last show of the day, with many people opting to linger at the station all day.

It’s reassuring that interest is again high for WRPI, since during COVID they were unable to invite people into the station during orientation or in general. Membership numbers declined and participants couldn’t socialize in the same way as before. Mei described how there were even “X” marks on the couch, indicating the 6 feet of distance that people were supposed to maintain between each other.

While WRPI is student-run and student-focused, the station also has a smaller percentage of show hosts and DJs from the broader community on the air. Another impact of COVID was that these folks were generally not allowed on campus due to the school’s policy at the time that non-students or anyone not in the school’s COVID-19 testing pool was restricted from coming to campus. Those restrictions were relaxed in 2022. Lemon said that during fall semester 2022, WRPI got the OK to bring community show hosts back on-air, with most having returned by my November visit. With fewer hosts between 2020 and 2022, WRPI relied more heavily on their automation system, which is filled with thousands of albums (somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 per my tour guides). A current project, which will take a few semesters, is digitizing the station’s CD collection, adding the music to the automation system.

Large Library of Vinyl Records and CDs

In addition to the digitized music, WRPI has a large library of physical music, including vinyl records and CDs. Lemon said that students will play “vinyls,” but mainly use Spotify. Community DJs are more likely to play CDs, but CDs are generally the least played form of media at the station. The most popular methods for playing music at WRPI is from digital or computer-based sources, followed by vinyl records.

As we toured through the station, there were shelves and shelves of records, spread across numerous libraries. In the midst of reorganizing the rooms and the music collection, WRPI is retooling a former “genre room” to a space for CDs and material by local artists. That library used to house material with a “concrete” genre, but interpretations of genres have changed at the station, so the functionality of that room has been questioned of late. Another room is labeled VLTEB, an acronym for the charmingly named Vinyl Library Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Programming Variety

As far as programming, WRPI plays a mix of music shows, talk shows and sports (including hockey). The long-time LGBT show Homo Radio has been on the air since 1992, featuring “news, interviews, event listings, a concert calendar, music by gay-friendly artists” and more, per its website. As far as music, Lemon said that WRPI is a “niche station,” and Top 40 music isn’t generally played. Lemon’s show last fall, “The Lemonheads,” focused on 1970s rock and they also co-hosted “Music from the Decades” with friends. Mei played KPOP and JROCK on her show, “Candy Shop.”

As we glanced at a posted show schedule together, another staffer pointed out his show, “The Ungodly Hour,” which has to be one of the best show names ever. Other programs played indie pop, radio dramas, spoken word, R&B, hip-hop, electronic dance music, and more. I was intrigued by the wonderfully spooky description of a midnight show called “The Devil’s Hour.” Hosted by DJ Selene, the program schedule states, “At this hour, the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest. Spirits make their way into our world, where they travel through the radio waves and enter the minds of mortals…”

During my visit the station’s powerful 10,000 watt FM transmitter was down. It was being shut off between 8am and 5pm for several months while it was being repainted. The webstream was still running and daytime FM broadcasts came back in January, 2023. As is frequently the case in college radio, the engineering team was busy with many projects. Jose, the Chief Engineer, showed me around the immaculately organized engineering room, which seemed quite fitting for a tech-oriented school’s radio station.

Student Radio at Rensselaer Dates Back to the 1920s

One of the things that prompted my visit to WRPI was my interest in the station’s long and intriguing history. Licensed as an FM station since 1957, WRPI is the descendant of campus radio activities dating back to the 1920s. Rensselaer-owned WHAZ launched over AM in September, 1922. At the time, a news account in The Knickerbocker Press described it as “the most powerful station operated at any educational institution in the country.”

A bulletin published by Rensselaer in 1922 states the rationale and purpose for this initial station:

Realizing its obligation to supply technically trained men for this work, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has, from time to time, found it necessary to make additions to its radio laboratory equipment. The latest addition is a radio telephone broadcasting equipment of the best type known to the art, which has been installed on the third floor of the Russell Sage Laboratory. It was designed primarily to give practical instruction in the operation of apparatus, the theory of which is studied in the classroom…

Popular interest in radio broadcasting has created a demand for diversified programs, and it is felt that engineering schools which require this type of apparatus for teaching purposes can assist in satisfying the demand of the public for broadcast entertainment by supplying programs of an educational nature. For this reason, this station, known by the call letters W H A Z, will broadcast every Monday evening at 8.15, Eastern Standard time, program. consisting of musical selections and addresses by men prominent in all fields of human activity.

Incredibly, AM station WHAZ was owned by Rensselaer until 1967, when it was sold to station WPOW. In the intervening years, a variety of radio activities were happening on campus. The WRPI website outlines this history. As far as the 1920s, “In 1924, a group called Campus Review was formed, devoted to broadcasting college-oriented entertainment and radio to the Troy area. Campus Review was initially responsible for programming a half hour of WHAZ’s six-hours-a-week schedule on Monday night,” according to the WRPI website.

Radio Expansion in the 1940s

By the 1940s, radio activities had expanded and an engineering student organized the “Rensselaer Broadcasting Association” in 1947. According to WRPI, “The RBA took over the remainder of WHAZ’s schedule, working with Campus Review and using talent drawn completely from the RPI community. Later that year, the Radio Club started an experimental AM radio station began broadcasting from the Russell Sage labs, under their call sign W2SZ. Its signal only covered the Quadrangle (then the freshman dorms), but with WHAZ only broadcasting once a week, W2SZ became the first campus station to truly get the attention of the RPI community. Soon students were referring to it, informally, as WRPI.”

In 1948, several radio groups on campus merged to form the Radio Counsel and a few years later, in 1951, it “was divided into an amateur radio group, which still convenes as W2SZ to this day, and a broadcast group.” Broadcasting over 640 AM as WRPI, this campus-only station sent programming out, “using small transmitters scattered throughout campus” and “claimed a listenership of 85% of all those listening to radio sets on campus,” according to WRPI’s website.

WRPI FM Era from 1957 to Today

At WRPI today, one can peruse a timeline of historical tidbits by decade, starting with the 1950s (WRPI launched over FM in 1957) and 1960s. A collage of photos, newspaper clippings, vintage program guides, and stickers; the timeline goes up through the 2010s. Mei and Lemon said that they hoped to extend the display to the 2020s.

As I concluded my WRPI visit, Program Director Lemon and On-Campus PR Manager Mei shared with me why the station is such a special place for them on campus. Mei explained, “It felt so easy to be here compared to any other places that I’ve been…being a woman in STEM.” She added that she also feels welcome at WRPI as a member of the LGBT community, remarking, “It’s nice to see yourself represented.” Lemon concurred, saying that “especially at an engineering school. It’s a majority cis-het men… It’s so nice to have this community where you can be authentic. You can be yourself. Not have to try to like mask, hide, anything like that.” Mei pointed out that WRPI is intentional about creating a positive environment and has safer space policies to ensure that people feel “welcome, appreciated and not put down.”

Thanks to WRPI + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to everyone at WRPI for the fun visit. This is my 167th radio station tour report and my 109th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. And watch this space for additional tours from my travels in New York state.

The post Radio Station Visit #167: College Radio Station WRPI at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute appeared first on Radio Survivor.

As I wandered through a labyrinth-like campus center building looking for college radio station WCDB after a long day of cross-country travel, it felt like the olden days before 2020, when I used to regularly take field trips to radio stations, often mapping out ridiculously ambitious schedules for myself in order to see as many stations as possible. That all stopped with the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning in March, 2020, I stayed close to home. And most radio stations severely restricted the number of people coming in and out. Nearly three years later (what a strange time warp, that’s been), it feels like much of the life from before has returned. And that was palpable as I checked in on four college radio stations in New York in November, 2022.

WCDB-FM at the SUNY campus of University at Albany was my first station visit since 2019 and it proved to be an inspirational re-introduction into the world of college radio today. When I stopped by on an autumn Wednesday night, WCDB was abuzz with activity. In a manager’s office, flyers were printing for the fall show (featuring indie songwriter Katy Kirby, Brooklyn-based alt-rock band Raavi, and local rap group Capital City Crooks) that that station was presenting in a few days. Meanwhile, students streamed in and out of the station for a weekly drop-in training session in the studio.

College Radio Comes Back to Life after Pandemic

In my conversations with General Manager Mehr Sharma and Co-Training Director DJ Kastro we talked about how the pandemic pushed pause on the breadth of radio station activities; but the current vibe was optimistic, with WCDB on a high point, coming back better than ever. Sharma reflected on the past few years, saying, “I joined the station my first day of classes my freshman year, but because of COVID, half of that time doesn’t feel real.” Although WCDB continued broadcasting, there were fewer in-person DJs and more reliance on automation.

As restrictions slowly lifted, fall 2022 looks a lot like how things were when Sharma joined in 2019. “This year has been kind of crazy in terms of recruitment,” Sharma relayed, telling me that they are running out of prime slots for new DJs and training sessions are overflowing the studio with as many as 15 prospective DJs. She speculated that as more students are getting acclimated to regular college life, there’s an eagerness to participate in activities like college radio, saying that for seniors, “half of our college experience we weren’t able to do much, now we want to make the most of it.”

WCDB also has some long-time community and alumni DJs, notably Bill McCann, who has hosted “The Saturday Morning Edition of Jazz” since April, 1985 and Sir Walford, who has hosted a reggae show, “The Many Moods of Sir Walford” since 1997. Most of the DJs are undergraduate students and that’s the focus of recruitment efforts.

Creating a Welcoming Station Environment

A big accomplishment for WCDB has been attracting a broader range of students recently, with Sharma pointing out that the station now feels more reflective of the diverse student population on campus. By being more open to each DJ’s musical taste, they argue that they’ve created an environment that feels more welcoming than in the past. Sharma’s take on that is that college radio historically has a tendency to put up walls. She is a proponent of breaking apart that gatekeeper mentality, saying that “you get the weirdest, most fun stuff” if you are “inclusive to everyone,” adding, “There’s no point in being gatekeepery about college radio if we want college radio to keep being a thing.”

Many radio stations talk about making their spaces more welcoming and more diverse, but struggle to do so. When I asked how WCDB accomplished this in such a short period of time, DJ Kastro cited “Block Party” as one reason. At the campus event which showcases clubs, he DJ’d for 6 hours straight, serving as an enthusiastic ambassador for WCDB. Sharma chimed in that DJ Kastro did so “with the best energy.”

Besides that event, they try to be more present and visible on campus, and Sharma thinks it’s made a difference for prospective DJs to see “people of color who are into indie and alt stuff” representing the college radio station at events, “instead of a table of four white college dudes judging you as you pick out every CD.” Although Sharma had “sweet” training directors and was welcomed at the station, she acknowledged that there “was no one here that looks like me.” That is changing and she said that she’s heartened that more people are coming to the station to just hang out and “chat about music in a non-judgy way.”

Even within the past few years, there’s been a sense of station community, with DJs forging friendships at times with people who they may not have otherwise met on campus. Sharma joked that the station “has done a lot for our social lives,” and that rings especially true since she joined just a few months before the COVID-19 campus lock downs. She ended up “crashing” with the former WCDB General Manager during the summer of 2020 because she didn’t want to travel home during the height of COVID. And she’s not the only one who has become friends and roommates with others from the station.

Music, Sub Genres and Intersections with Albany Scene

Only 19, and celebrating his one year anniversary at WCDB on the day of my visit, DJ Kastro talked about how his short time at the station has opened his ears musically. Joining the station as someone strictly focused on hip hop, he shared that he got “converted” to the metal scene. He embraces the chance to go deep into sub genres of music, explaining how “breaking those bubbles” and definitions is important, adding that at WCDB, “we emphasize the sub genres.” Sharma mentioned that the station’s engineer is a good example of that blurring of genre boundaries, having started out as a “strict metal head” and now doing “doo-wop shows.” Other DJs play electronic music, video game music, country, alt rock, hip hop, and punk. A newer DJ has been investigating the history of the Albany punk scene and bringing in his own mix CDs.

Sharma also really enjoys booking bands and sharing music with others, telling me about her excitement about getting Raavi to play at the fall show since the band represents “a fresh perspective” in the indie music scene, being both queer and south Asian, like Sharma. WCDB has deep connections with the music community in Albany. Sharma characterized it as a “thriving” scene that’s a “welcoming” and “tight-knit community.” The station functions like a “pipeline” into that world, with current and former DJs and staff performing in bands, booking shows, doing sound at concerts, and running venues. WCDB hosts shows in Albany at 300 person capacity venues, with DJ Kastro commenting that this works to build connections “for a lifetime.”

Appreciation for College Radio’s History and Relevance Today

DJ Kastro also expressed his appreciation for both radio history and the ongoing relevance of radio. He said that it “feels good that people are still listening to radio,” especially in the “day of Spotify,” pointing out the importance of “broadcasting up and coming DJs and artists.” The broader community of college radio is something that motivates him and he mentioned college radio DJs from decades past, like Flavor Flav and Stretch & Bobbito, saying, “they inspire a lot of what I do.”

As DJ Kastro peppered me with WCDB trivia (including that the call letters stand for “Capital District’s Best”), it was clear that WCDB’s history is important to the station. One of the first things that one encounters in the lobby is a trophy case “shrine” full of artifacts, including flyers, promotional items, drawings, newspaper clippings, program guides, vintage 45s, and reel-to-reel recordings. A hallway wall that leads from the lobby to the studios features a giant commemorative record of the first song played on the station (Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”).

The station website (which hasn’t changed much in at least a decade) is also an amazingly retro homage to the past, featuring imagery reminiscent of the early 90s. Sharma described the background graphic as resembling “bus seat upholstery” or “arcade carpet,” and chuckled at how people used to think it was “goofy,” but that freshmen have pointed out how “cool” the website looks, as the ’80s-looking logo and squiggles are now in style again.

Digging into WCDB’s Lengthy History

The WCDB website also includes a lengthy write-up about the station’s history and how it’s connected with earlier radio stations on campus. As a college radio history enthusiast, I appreciated the care taken to tell this story. In “A Brief History of Radio at UAlbany,” (written and edited by Marc Gronich and other radio alums), March 2, 1939 is cited as a key date for “the genesis of campus radio at UAlbany.” They write that on this date a “remote broadcast – over WOKO (1460AM)” emanated from a room on campus. The broadcast “began with a speech by Dr. Abram Brubacher, President of State College for Teachers, and was followed by a five-scene dramatization of the college’s early days. Playing of the school’s alma mater closed the half-hour program.”

Especially fascinating to me was how this broadcast and future broadcasts were facilitated by the discovery of old speech department equipment. Gronich writes, “President Brubacher and some of the faculty realized that equipment from the speech department, used to correct prospective teachers’ speech difficulties – recording machines, microphones and a soundproof room giving the best acoustic effects possible – could also be put to use to broadcast over the air.” These “remote broadcasts via WOKO continued until the early 1940s when World War II led to its suspension.”

Although the University Radio Council was created in the late 1940s to make plans for a campus radio station, a carrier current station was not launched until February 22, 1963 over 640 AM (out of a hallway broom closet) with call letters WSUA. The “Brief History” includes an amusing recollection from an alumnus saying that “the station was dubbed ‘The Fry Pan Network’ with 640 being the temperature for cooking ham.” The station had dreams of going FM and after obtaining an FCC license, WCDB launched with 10 watts of power over 90.9 FM on March 1, 1978. Per the station’s history, “WCDB’s first D.J., Jim Saturno, played Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ over the airwaves as the university Carillon played the same song – ringing in a new era in UAlbany radio broadcasting.”

I love hearing about the ways that college radio stations have collaborated with each other over the years and was intrigued to read that the lead author of the WCDB history document, Marc Gronich, “spearheaded the Election Night College Network” (along with a crew of others from the station) in 1980 and 1984. “ENCN brought together 41 college radio stations from across the country to share election night news reports from a student perspective about the U.S. Senate, Congressional and Presidential races in each state. When a station filed a news report, it was able to receive a taped news report from a different state.”

More details on WCDB history can be found on the alumni-led WCDB Historical Society website, which was launched in December, 1996. Full of audio, video, and images, it’s an amazing resource for materials related to WCDB’s history. Per the society’s website, it is the “result of a project started in 1994 to form a WCDB Alumni Association to help guide and fund the radio station.” After evolving to an “online group for networking current and former WCDB and WSUA alumni,” it transitioned once again to “a repository of historical information and as an audio archive.”

Thanks to WCDB + More Radio Station Tours

Thanks to Mehr Sharma and DJ Kastro for the great conversations and fun tour of WCDB. You can hear more about this visit on Radio Survivor Podcast episode #329. This is my 166th radio station tour report and my 108th college radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. And watch this space for additional tours from my travels in New York state.

The post Radio Station Visit #166: College Radio Station WCDB at University at Albany appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On the edge of a funky beach town in Maui lies magical community radio station KOPO-LP, whose broadcasts are filled with youthful voices. Since 2006, thousands of kids and teens from the Pa’ia Youth and Cultural Center (PYCC) have taken to the FM airwaves from its seaside perch.

Known as RadiOpio (opio means “youth” in Hawaiian), KOPO-LP operates from the site of a formerly abandoned building that now houses a youth center, complete with skate park. As surfers trek to and from the adjacent beach, young people are hanging out, skateboarding, playing pool, and taking part in a range of programs, from cooking to media production.

While on vacation in Hawaii this August, I dropped in to the station with my family and was lucky to be able to meet up with RadiOpio Program Director Laura Civitello. Civitello greeted us enthusiastically and indulged me in a short interview and tour. She told a fascinating story about the station’s improbable history. It all begins with Pa’ia Youth and Cultural Center, which stemmed from a grassroots community effort to re-purpose an old, spooky home that was the sole survivor of a neighborhood-destroying 1946 tsunami.

Civitello recounted that in 1999, a staff member at the youth center spotted an ad in Wired Magazine about the opportunity for a low power radio license and that prompted the organization to apply. By 2005, they were awarded a construction permit for a new FM station, but struggled to find someone to take on the project as a youth program.

When the center reached out to Civitello, her reaction was markedly different. She told me that she thought, “That’s perfect for me.” After taking on the project, she heard from plenty of naysayers who told her that it was “insane” to launch a radio station at the beach with kids on the air. She was undeterred.

Having been a volunteer at another Maui community radio station, Mana’o Radio (see my tour report), prior to KOPO-LP; Civitello had both local radio connections and insights, which helped as she worked to get the new station on the air in 2006. “It went well immediately,” she recounted, explaining that RadiOpio’s focus on its participants is key. To emphasize that, she spoke about the station’s air sound, relaying, “I hope it’s the sound of kids having fun.”

While we chatted, I noticed numerous radios in Civitello’s office. When I pointed them out, she smiled and revealed that folks keep giving her radios as gifts, no doubt as a sign of her passion for radio. The school year started a few days before our visit and the center was buzzing with activity. Young people trickled in and out to check in with Civitello and we were introduced to some of the DJs, including a pair of 12-year-old girls who were on the air.

The KOPO-LP studio is in a tiny room next to Civitello’s office. A short hallway leads in to the studio and we loitered there while checking out the space. With two DJs sitting in the studio in front of microphones and audio equipment, the studio was pretty much at maximum capacity.

Between songs, the show hosts bantered before exiting the studio to make room for the new crew of DJs. Civitello explained that the schedule is very loose, with kids as young as nine years old coming in after school and taking turns on the air. “I give them a lot of freedom,” Civitello shared, telling me that the young DJs make their own decisions about what to play and say on the air. Sometimes kids will even sing along with the music that they are playing with the microphones turned on.

Although KOPO 88.9 FM’s 100 watt range is hampered by the ocean (not too many listeners in that direction), we were amazed by how far we heard the station on our sunset drive up to the 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala. As we trekked out of town and up into the clouds, we caught a mix of pop (Billie Eilish was a big favorite of many DJs), hip-hop (Cardi B, Post Malone and Big Sean were represented) and reggae and could still hear KOPO-LP as we hit an elevation of 7,000 feet! On our post-sunset journey back down, KOPO-LP was playing some older music, including jazzy-bluesy material and some vintage pop from Patti Drew. Earlier in the day we’d heard some classic Beastie Boys as well.

Civitello said that over FM, KOPO-LP covers the north shore of Maui, but that it also has many “faithful” online listeners. The soul of the station is its young participants. “We’re like a family,” Civitello opined, telling me that the free after-school programs at the youth center draw in 9 to 19-year-olds from a range of backgrounds, including “some of the wealthiest kids in the world” as well as youth who are homeless. Most end up doing radio at one point or another, but there’s also the lure of the skate park, pool tables, and other programs.

As I took in the beautiful surroundings and incredible opportunity for kids to do radio at such young ages, I thought about all the tourists passing through on their way to see the sights of Hawaii. I hope they take the time to flip through the dial on their rental cars to catch the joyful sounds of kids and teens on RadiOpio.

Thanks to Laura Civitello for welcoming us at RadiOpio when we stopped by unannounced! Following the visit, she joined us on Radio Survivor show/podcast episode #210, “Youth Radio by the Beach,” filling in even more details about how the station came to be. This is my 165th radio station tour report and my 36th community radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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On a dreamy Hawaiian vacation this August, I carved out some time to visit community radio station KMNO Mana’o Radio on the island of Maui. My colleagues Matthew Lasar and Paul Riismandel have both written about the station in the past and last year Paul did an impromptu visit, piquing my interest even more.

As I plotted out a family trip to Maui, scheduling a visit to KMNO was a great excuse to visit the town of Wailuku. We spent the morning sampling artisan doughnuts and meeting the gregarious owner at Donut Dynamite, hiking in the lush Iao Valley, and roaming through funky thrift stores and antique shops.

Located in close proximity to the town’s commercial strip, Mana’o Radio is a short walk to a record store, Request Music, as well as shops, restaurants and cafes. Having spent much of our trip in touristy zones, it was refreshing to check out the more locals-oriented Wailuku.

Embracing the spirit of aloha that we felt on our trip, Mana’o Radio was a lovely respite on a hot afternoon. In the air conditioned station lobby, General Manager Michael Elam met up with me and my family to share the story of KMNO. Shelves of music comprised one side of the lobby, with desks and cabinets on the other side. A door leads into the on-air studio, where a DJ was hosting a program during our visit.

An all-volunteer operation, KMNO is led by a six-person board and has around 45 volunteers. Eschewing pledge drives, Mana’o Radio instead relies on underwriting and special event fundraisers. Elam said that it has been “truly listener supported since day one.” Even better, he added that the station is financially stable and lauded by the community. Just a few weeks before my visit, KMNO was named “best radio station” in local publication, Maui Time Weekly.

Originally a low power station beginning in 2002 (KEAO-LP), Mana’o Radio’s initial FCC application stated,

Manao Radio was incorporated in the state of Hawaii on August 28, 2000. ‘Manao’ is a Hawaiian word which means ‘thought, idea, opinion, theory, meaning, mind; to think, suppose, meditate, deem, consider’. It is one of many non-English words used frequently in Hawaii, often in the phrase ‘sharing manao,’ or the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and expertise. Pre-contact Hawaiians had no written language; knowledge was passed through the oral tradition of sharing manao. We chose the name ‘Manao Radio’ because we see this station as a modern extension of this tradition; an opportunity to educate the community through multicultural sharing.

Mana’o Radio later cancelled its LPFM license and obtained a full power FM license, upgrading its signal in 2014 to 1200 watts at 91.7 FM. Elam told me that just last year, they added a translator and are now able to reach the entire island of Maui, which he said has around 160,000 year-round residents.

Elam explained that the station’s mission has expanded since its early days as a low power “hippie station.” While it still caters to that audience, programming has expanded recently and they’ve had an influx of new DJs in the past one to three years. There are hip-hop and electronica shows now and a beats workshop at nearby Request Music was in keeping with KMNO’s desire to support live music and local Maui musicians, according to Elam.

Although Mana’o is primarily focused on its local listeners; it’s not lost on them that the station broadcasts in tourism-focused Hawaii. With its online stream, Elam opined that they would love to have visitors take the station home with them.

With all local programming, KMNO airs a wide range of live shows and plays automated music playlists during the late night hours (midnight to 3am). Genres over the course of the broadcast day include metal, jazz, Celtic music, classical, blues, rock, soul, country, and more. While tuning in to the station throughout our Hawaiian vacation, we enjoyed the mix, including a fun old school hip hop show, some newer indie rock, and tidbits of Hawaiian history, which run twice a day.

A number of shows have a traditional freeform aesthetic, blending a range of genres. DJ Forest, who was on the air when we stopped by, talked about his underground radio past in the San Francisco Bay Area (at KPFA and KTIM to name a few). As I learned about the places that many Mana’o Radio DJs had migrated from, it brought to mind the fascinating melange of folks who have been drawn to Hawaii.

Mahalo to Michael Elam for the interview and tour. This is my 164th radio station tour report and my 35th community radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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Summer began for me with a short trip to Colorado, which prompted a road trip to see the sights of Boulder, including famed community radio station KGNU 88.5 FM/1390AM. Founded in 1978, the station has staff of less than ten, but an active roster of around 400 volunteers and a broadcast that reaches from Boulder to Denver and beyond.

KGNU was recently on my radar after I learned about its long-running hip-hop program, “The Eclipse Show,” (reportedly the longest running hip-hop show anywhere) during a 2018 Radio Survivor interview with Hip-Hop Radio Archive founder Ryan MacMichael. Following that episode, we spoke with one of the hosts of the Eclipse Show, DJ A-L, to learn more about its 40 year history. As it turns out, the program’s history as “an alternative black radio show” (beginning in 1978) and current incarnation as a live music mix show parallels the history of KGNU; which piqued my interest about the station even more.

Coincidentally, KGNU kicked off its recent 40th anniversary celebration (read about the station’s early history here) with a New Year’s Eve hip-hop show, followed by a series of events, including a gala and a museum exhibit. Over the airwaves, the station did weekly music flashbacks (“40 Years in 40 Weeks”) and monthly programming flashbacks (“Flashback 40”), highlighting historic archives, including early LGBTQ and feminist programming.

Music and public affairs programming are important aspects of KGNU, with the FM schedule comprised of news/public affairs during traditional commute times (weekday mornings and afternoons) and for much of the daytime hours on Saturdays. Music rounds out the FM schedule and is also the entire focus of a special KGNU stream called “After FM,” for listeners who would like to tune in to KGNU music programming round-the-clock.

In addition to “The Eclipse Show,” another long-time program on KGNU, “Reggae Bloodlines,” has been on the air since 1978. Other music shows run the gamut from blues to electronic to folk to opera to jazz to experimental sounds.

On my visit to KGNU, Station Manager Tim Russo showed me around the Boulder digs and sat down for an interview with me. Connected with KGNU for around 20 years (and Station Manager since 2015), he first got involved while a student and campus activist, telling me that he recognized that radio was a way to “amplify” voices.

I was particularly excited to see the ways that KGNU works with local organizations, including numerous groups focused on youth. They’ve run youth radio camps, have worked with high school groups, and have a multi-year Media Gardens projects working with bilingual young people on art and radio projects.

KGNU has also brought high school students into the station alongside a training program (including bilingual storytelling) that takes place in the schools. Russo pointed out that they are already noticing an increase in interns from that partner high school and that it’s important for KGNU to learn from young people how to make the station a more “relevant” place for them.

Russo articulated KGNU’s desire to “keep the doors open” to youth and also allow for all volunteers to try new things and innovate. He said that it can be challenging for new folks to break into the programming schedule at KGNU, where there are more applicants than time slots. He’s hoping to create more opportunities and “side channels” in order to include more voices. In part, that’s where After FM and HD come in for KGNU. Those channels are available as “training and innovation spaces” and as places to try out new programming, according to Russo.

KGNU’s ethos as a “community-powered” station is palpable. Russo elaborated that, “We’re very much a mission-driven organization and that’s to be an amplifier for underrepresented voices, culture and community. So we definitely say that KGNU for 40 years has been amplifying community voices, culture and music.”

The desire to keep in touch with and change with the community is admirable. Russo told me that KGNU strives to be “perpetually relevant” and a place that is “reflecting the interests of the community” as a “cultural center” and “hub” for the community. “It’s much more than a radio [station],” Russo opined.

Thanks to Tim Russo and everyone at KGNU for the lovely summer visit. This is my 163rd radio station tour report and my 34th community radio station recap. View all my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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At the end of a long day of travel, I found myself in the relaxing digs of streaming college radio station KSDT at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). In a quiet spot on campus, the station’s lobby door opens onto a pathway within the old student center complex. It’s near the student-run television station (Triton TV) and various socially-minded student services reside nearby, including a food pantry, LGBT Resource Center, Student Veterans Resource Center, Food Co-Op and a long-time collectively-run bookstore (Groundwork Books).

On a sleepy June evening, just a few days after graduation, Programming Director Adriana Barrios and Media Director Emanuel Castro Cariño greeted me in the KSDT lobby for a chat and a tour. The station was on a brief summer hiatus, with live shows returning in July. In the absence of regular DJs, KSDT was running an automated mix of music from a big hard drive dubbed “Satan.”

While there’s no set music genre for KSDT, the station does work to support independent, underground artists. Castro Cariño described the station sound as “eclectic,” praising its “weird audience” of listeners, including a fan in Poland who enjoys the station’s surf/garage show. Barrios said that while there are quite a few shows playing “indie pop” and “SoundCloud rappers,” she’s encouraging people to bring in genres that aren’t common at KSDT since they have so much available time on the schedule. “The more diversity in music, the better,” she relayed, summing up her programming philosophy.

An enthusiastic fan of college radio, Barrios talked about her visits to stations in Boston and throughout California (thanks to University of California Radio Network conferences). Inspired in part by what she and other staffers have seen at other radio stations, KSDT is combing through its archives to uncover its 50+ year history.

As is the case at many college radio stations, the current participants at KSDT don’t know too much about the station’s past. A decade ago, a 2009 UCSD Guardian article uncovered historical tidbits, namely pointing out that the station has never had a licensed over-the-air frequency. From the earliest days, KSDT operated over very low power, initially broadcasting to dorms in 1968 via AM carrier current. By 1973, the station was able to expand its reach to the broader San Diego community thanks to cable FM.

A 1987 Los Angeles Times article pointed out that KSDT “…has a potentially massive listening audience. You can pick it up at 95.7 on Cox Cable FM, 95.5 on Southwestern Cable FM.” The L.A. Times explained that cable FM was a service utilized by a small percentage of cable customers in 1987, stating, “A spokesman for Cox said a lot of people just plain miss cable FM. Out of 278,000 Cox subscribers, only 3,000 get the FM service. He, of course, would like a higher number, as would KSDT. (It costs $3.95 a month.) KSDT reaches only a few dormitories, wired to receive the signal through electrical outlets–you just can’t get it over the airwaves.”

As they toured me through the station, Barrios referred to vintage KSDT stickers emblazoned with long-forgotten frequencies from the station’s cable FM and AM carrier current days. She and Castro Cariño also pointed out file cabinets containing historical documents and reel-to-reel audio tapes housed in the station’s music library.

Barrios shared that KSDT is in the process of recovering its history by going through files and piecing together the story of the station’s past. As for the rationale, she opined that while KSDT is certainly looking ahead to its future, they also want to make a conscious effort to ground themselves in where they’ve come from.

It’s a group effort, with several folks at the station interested in delving into the station’s archival material, including video. KSDT’s Winter 2019 ‘zine even featured record reviews of some LPs from the KSDT library dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. Barrios would also like to work on engaging with KSDT alumni is a more significant way and creating a plan for how to involve alumni DJs was on her summer to-do list.

Just past the lobby, KSDT’s spacious on-air studio has a large window overlooking a patio, with picnic tables and an eatery nearby. When broadcasting, speakers outside the studio beam the KSDT stream to passersby. Within the studio, there’s the requisite broadcasting equipment and the surrounding walls and shelves hold the recently alphabetized vinyl LPs, 7″ records, and even some vintage reel-to-reel tapes.

The studio has another window overlooking a small office (with plenty of sticker-covered surfaces) as well as a roll-up door/window that can be raised to create an open expanse between the lobby and the studio. A short hallway leads from the lobby to a music practice room.

A student-run college radio station, KSDT has a staff of 12 students and around 100 DJs every quarter doing one-hour shows. Additionally, the station runs a music practice room with a membership of around 50 to 70 people. A unique project (I’m not aware of a practice room run by any other college radio station), I was told that the practice room is the only space on the UCSD campus outside of the music department that provides instruments and space for musicians to practice. Castro Cariño recounted that a few years back it was a “passion project” by the students who ultimately built the space.

A haven for both musicians and audio engineers, the practice room is stocked with drums, a piano, guitar, various percussion instruments, amps, cables, and microphones. In addition to being a helpful space for artists, it also benefits the station by bringing musical talent in to KSDT.

With summer break underway, Barrios was preparing for her senior year at UCSD while Castro Cariño was heading out into the world as a college graduate. At KSDT since his sophomore year, he said that while some might say it’s “bittersweet” to be moving on, he’s ready for the next phase and even has some ideas percolating on how to do community radio back in his home town. In part, he’d like to try to replicate the inspiring community that he found at KSDT. Reflecting back on his first moments at the station, he was struck by its “homey” feel, explaining that it was one of the places on campus where he felt “socially calm,” “at home” and “at peace.”

Barrios didn’t anticipate how important KSDT would become for her when she jokingly proposed hosting a show she called “Fake Indie, Real Talk” her first year of college. She told me that she didn’t know much about music and was intimidated by the seemingly music savvy DJs. Just wrapping up her second year at Programming Director when we met, she told me, “I’m so happy I applied as a joke,” adding that KSDT is “probably THE coolest thing on campus.”

It’s also a place where people seem to really care about the work that they are doing both on and off air. Barrios started up a new “training quarter” program in fall, 2018 to provide more structure for new DJs. The components of the program include orientation (including training on how to spin vinyl records), DJ shadowing, and a series of non-prime-time solo hours on KSDT.

Additionally, as part of the effort to make their time in radio a bit more of an educational experience, KSDT has a programming review process in which interns listen to shows at a particular time of day and provide feedback to the DJs/hosts. Barrios explained, “It’s really hard to do radio when you’ve never done radio before.” New DJs are given suggestions on how to improve their shows across a range of areas. Barrios described the reviews as “holistic,” with Castro Cariño adding that much of what they are aiming for is helping on-air hosts to be better communicators.

Both Barrios and Castro Cariño talked about how special it is to participate in college radio, citing being part of a creative community as a huge plus, especially at a university that they described as “STEM-focused.” It’s a sentiment that’s a common refrain at student-run radio stations and rings true for me as well: college radio can be an escape from the day-to-day stress of academics and a place to connect with fellow music lovers, artists, and soon-to-be radio nerds (in the best possible way).

Thanks to Adriana Barrios and Emanuel Castro Cariño for spending a Tuesday night hanging out with me and schooling me about all things KSDT. This is my 162nd radio station tour report and my 107th college radio station tour. See my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. I recap my San Diego-area college radio travels on Radio Survivor Podcast #202.

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During my full day of radio station tours in the San Diego area in June, 2019, I visited college radio station KCR at San Diego State University. On a sprawling campus with a student population of more than 36,000, the station was a bit tricky to find. After a few missed turns, I parked atop an 8-floor garage and made my way the KCR studio in the school’s Communication building.

KCR’s General Manager Ahmad Dixon greeted me, giving me the grand tour of the main KCR studio and also led me on a quick jaunt to see a satellite building that serves as a production studio and social hub for the station.

Dating back to 1969, KCR is in the midst of its 50th anniversary celebrations this year. KCR has never had an FCC-licensed over-the-air terrestrial signal; but it does have a very interesting, interrelated relationship with a long-time public radio station on campus.

Radio activity began in 1960 at the then-named San Diego State College, when educational radio station KEBS launched as part of the school’s speech department. A 2009 obituary for founder Ken Jones, recounts that,

Jones was the brain behind KEBS-FM (Educational Broadcasting in San Diego) which later became KPBS. It was the first radio station licensed to a California State University campus. In the mid-1950s, as a speech communications professor at San Diego State College (now SDSU), Jones began his work toward starting an educational radio station on campus. KEBS began broadcasting on Sept. 12, 1960 from the Speech Arts Building. The original schedule was only two-and-a-half hours, five days a week.”

Although students were involved in educational radio station KEBS, it was not a student envisioned or student-led program, which ultimately prompted the eventual founding of student radio station KCR. On the KCR Alumni website, Jerry Zullo shares the story of how KCR came to be:

The story starts in 1966.  At that time, Radio-TV majors (later called Telecommunications & Film) were required to complete a Senior Project in order to graduate.  A student named Martin Gienke decided to do a feasibility study, complete with recommendations, on setting up a student radio station at San Diego State…

At that time, KEBS-FM (later KPBS-FM) was considered a ‘student station;’ that is, it was operated by students who were forced to work there as part of their Radio-TV curriculum.  KEBS broadcast with 780 watts with an antenna on the roof of the Speech Arts Building. We were on the air Monday through Friday from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., playing classical music and boring taped ‘educational’ programs.  Hardly anybody’s real idea of a student station.

Martin roped me into the project.  He’d do the study, and then my Senior Project would be to get the station on the air.  The ideal solution would have been to take over KEBS and turn it into a real student station, but after discussion with faculty we knew that wasn’t going to happen.”

I was especially intrigued to read that in the 1960s, Martin Gienke and Jerry Zullo embarked on tours of “every college radio station in California.” Zullo explains:

We did interviews, found out what worked, what didn’t work, how the stations were set up, formats, funding, pitfalls to be careful of, etc.  In the end, we ended up with a report about three inches thick. The final recommendation was to make San Diego State’s student station a carrier current station, using electrical wiring in the buildings to carry the signal.”

A few years later, in 1969, the dreams of a student-run carrier current station were realized, with transmitters in dorms all over campus and the AM broadcasts even leaking into the nearby community. Zullo writes,

We started engineering tests and found that not only did we cover all the dorms, but the signal sort of leaked (kind of on purpose) and we covered the entire campus.  In fact, if you were driving, you could listen to KCR on Interstate 8 between San Diego Stadium and College Avenue.  On Montezuma Road and over to El Cajon Boulevard, you could hear the station from about 54th Street to 63rd Street.”

Meanwhile, educational radio station KEBS-FM transitioned to a public radio station and was one of the charter members of NPR, even changing its call letters to KPBS in 1970.

Today, KCR still has an AM signal, broadcasting at 1610 AM for about a mile around campus (the AM location has changed over the years) and can also be heard on Cox Cable. Most listeners tune in to the station’s internet stream, however. Additionally, KCR has a strong video presence, with web cameras in the studio and a thriving YouTube channel.

I began my tour in KCR’s on-air studio in the Communication building. General Manager Ahmad Dixon pointed out various highlights, including the brand new, bright red fabric soundproofing material lining the walls. The station was DJ-less during the visit and “QC” (aka quality control) was playing in place of a live human. Curated by the music director, QC is the name for the mix of music, including indie and local material, that runs on automation.

Student-run live shows at KCR are “totally freeform,” according to Dixon. While DJs have creative license to play what they’d like from the station’s library or from their own collections, they are encouraged to play “odd, esoteric, non-mainstream” material, Dixon explained. The station also airs a mix of talk shows and sports programming (with a “hyperfocus” on San Diego State sports).

A talk show fanatic, Dixon joined KCR as a freshman (he’s a senior in Fall 2019) and relished the opportunities to experiment on the air. He reminisced a bit, telling me that he’d spun Kids Bop records, played vinyl backwards, and improvised a song while on-air.

These days it’s a bit more challenging to play vinyl on KCR, although some DJs bring in their own turntables to do so. The station still has an extensive vinyl collection, housed in lockers along with some older CDs.

Interestingly, KCR has two distinct locations on campus- the main studio in the Communications building and an additional studio across campus. As Dixon led me to the second space, he explained that the station has been wanting to beef up its podcasting efforts and the additional production-focused studio is helping with that.

KCR was able to take over an unused Daily Aztec student newspaper office when the publication reduced its space in the building. Today, it serves as an office, hang-out space and production facility for KCR. The main room is spacious, with seating, desks, computers, filing cabinets, and lots of historical items, including photos, and old KCR publications. Behind a door is a studio stocked with audio equipment.

With about 150 members of KCR, the station is busy both on-air and off-air, with radio shows, an active blog, and video content. In the past it also produced a magazine called “Dead Air,” which I caught glimpses of on the station’s walls.

It was gratifying to see that KCR has an active alumni network documenting the station’s 50 year history. Its alumni page is full of goodies, including scans of archival photos, program guides, vintage ephemera, and audio. Alumni still grace the KCR airwaves; with one DJ, Joe Shrin, a 40+ year veteran of the station. At KCR since 1976, he’s said to be the show host who has been there the longest.

Thanks so much to Ahmad Dixon for the summer tour of KCR! This is my 160th radio station tour report and my 105th college radio station tour. Read all of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. I also share tidbits about my San Diego-area college radio travels on Radio Survivor Podcast #202.

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Just east of San Diego, California in El Cajon is Grossmont College, home to online college radio station Griffin Radio. An extension of the community college’s Media Communications program, Griffin Radio is a “practical applications laboratory,” providing students with experience running and operating a radio station.

Griffin Radio is the descendant of AM carrier current station KGCR, which dates back to at least the 1970s. A 1986 piece in the Los Angeles Times explains the state of the station at the time, although misstates the station’s lengthier history:

Grossmont College’s tiny KGCR, which went on air 18 months ago and now broadcasts Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., has three formats. The first hour is devoted to jazz; 9 a.m. to noon is alternative music, and noon to 7 p.m. is Top 40.”

Call letters were eventually changed to KGFN, with the station ultimately getting renamed Griffin Radio after it dispensed with its carrier current broadcast. At the station since 1997, General Manager/Faculty Advisor Evan Wirig told me that the station’s AM carrier current transmissions inexplicably only went to the library. He remarked that the rationale behind transmitting radio in a quiet library space never made sense to him, although the speakers under the bookstore were appreciated.

He ended the carrier current broadcasts around 2000 and joked that prior to that one could apparently hear the AM broadcasts under Grossmont College’s old lamp posts. Things have changed quite a bit since then and the campus continues to evolve, made apparent to me after I navigated through a labyrinth of construction adjacent to the Digital Arts building where the station is housed.

A long-time radio fan and media industry veteran (he met his wife while doing college radio), Wirig seems to relish his current role as mentor and teacher. Like a proud parent, he enthusiastically shared anecdotes about students and alumni from the program, marveling at their achievements. Many have gone on to radio and media industry jobs and students regularly win broadcasting awards from various organizations.

Like most college radio stations, Griffin Radio has student leaders, regular air shifts, and many off-air projects, from promotional activities to production work. Live programs typically air between 8am and 3pm on school days. During my summertime visit students were not around, although the station runs on automation. Down the hall from the Griffin Radio studio, a journalism “Bootcamp” was underway, with students from various colleges getting a week-long crash course in hands-on journalism. Topics and projects included editing, podcasting, news reading, and radio news.

Although separate from the academic year’s radio program, there’s certainly overlap between the boot camp and the three semester long radio series. Those wishing to participate in Griffin Radio must first take a class in basic audio production or basic announcing. Advanced students have the opportunity to take on major leadership roles at the station, including Station Director, Program Director and News Director. While those positions are hired by Wirig; the student leaders are tasked with interviewing and hiring candidates for additional roles, including Production Manager, Music Director, and so on.

For the most part students are selecting the music that airs on Griffin Radio, which coalesces around a format that Wirig dubs “college top 40.” Encompassing a wide array of genres, the sounds include oldies, new age, rap, hip hop, independent music, country western, Broadway tunes, 80s new wave, progressive, metal, alternative and even holiday music. He added that it’s a “good, eclectic mix” that focuses mainly on the “college audience.” Although they are free from FCC rules as an internet station, Griffin Radio still eschews profanity-laden tracks and avoids material “promoting a hostile environment,” as Wirig relayed.

Wirig has high standards, telling me, “I expect a degree of professionalism.” Students can only play music housed in Griffin Radio’s digital library and when there isn’t a live show, automation kicks in. Occasionally bands play in the spacious station space or on its adjacent balcony. Additionally, Griffin Radio regularly does remote broadcasts from campus events, including career fairs and transfer days.

As he’s preparing students for real world, industry jobs, Wirig explained that for him, “hands on” learning is critical. “You just can’t learn outside of doing it,” he remarked. While students are gaining exposure to industry standards, like music rotation, they are also given the opportunity to do specialty shows and podcasts (recent ones have dug into musicals, urban legends, and the urban dictionary). Some students have done shows in their native languages, including Latinx Fest (in Spanish) and a techno show in Japanese; both shows drew audiences from afar, including Japan and just across the border in Mexico. One long-time regular Griffin Radio listener even sends DJs pizza when he is impressed by what they are doing on-air.

As we wrapped up my tour, Wirig waxed philosophical about journalism and media, remarking that the program continues to reinvent itself and that media is “very resilient.” Pointing out that, “leadership never changes” and that “good audio will always be good audio,” Wirig clearly relishes watching his students grow and succeed. “I will never give up on anybody who keeps trying,” he opined.

Thanks to Evan Wirig for the wonderful visit to Griffin Radio. This is my 159th radio station tour report and my 104th college radio station tour. Read all of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives. Also, you can hear some tidbits about my San Diego-area college radio travels on Radio Survivor Podcast #202.

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Tucked away in a shed in a northwest Seattle neighborhood was perhaps the tiniest radio station that I’d ever seen: community radio station KBFG-LP. Part of the most recent wave of low power FM stations, it launched in December, 2017 and broadcasts for a 2.5 mile radio to a potential FM audience of around 250,000 people in the Ballard, Fremont and Greenwood neighborhoods (thus the B-F-G call letters).

Radio Survivor readers will recall that my colleagues Eric and Paul attended KBFG’s launch party, interviewing several of its founders for Radio Survivor Podcast #124. That event was also featured in a big story about low power FM in the New York Times, lending some incredible early attention to the station.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, KBFG-LP was able to take to the airwaves before it had a public-facing studio, with programmers submitting their shows remotely. Within a year, it opened “The Shack,” in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. The mini studio was housed in a pre-fabricated building that I was told was really designed as a lawnmower shed. Nestled behind a coffee stand and steps away from a dumpster on a Ballard corner, it was a funky location that truly spoke to KBFG’s hyper-local, neighborhood ethos.

On a rainy afternoon in late October, 2018, I ventured to “The Shack” to check out the station. With room for approximately two people in the studio, part of the visit was spend lingering outside under umbrellas. As I spoke with Fulcrum Community Communications (KBFG’s non-profit license-holder) board member Jerry Russell, his fellow board member Pamela Burton arrived for a separate interview. I was curious how we’d all manage the space constraints and watched in awe as she invited the guest into her car for the conversation, while I chatted with Russell in the small studio. Clearly this is a crew that is used to managing with limited resources.

At the time of my visit, the Shack had been up and running for about six months, with a couple of shows broadcasting live from the cozy studio, including a Sunday evening show called “Night Sweats.” Other volunteers used the Shack to pre-record their shows or conduct interviews that would air at a later time. Russell explained that the Shack was outfitted with “bare bones” equipment while KBFG awaited an eventual move to a bigger space.

A light outside the door of the Shack alerted passersby that the station was on the air and speakers could also be set up to play KBFG to folks hanging out in the adjacent triangular gravel-filled space. While it was quiet (except for the “45rpm” show of 1940s and 1950s music playing from automation in the background) and rainy on my visit, I was told that during summer months there were picnic tables and a food truck parked outside, creating an even more convivial atmosphere

Earlier in the day, I got my first taste of KBFG during the Halloween event/food drive, Hunger Goblin’ Treat or Treat, in a nearby neighborhood. The station set up a remote outpost in the corner of a bank, with windows facing a busy daytime trick-or-treating route. The costumed father-son DJ duo played spooky tunes and chimed in with running commentary about the ghouls, goblins, TV characters, and other revelers spotted during the event.

While both the parade broadcast and the Shack speak to KBFG’s community outreach, back in October much of the production of radio shows was taking place inside the homes of DJs and show hosts. With a mix of music and public affairs programming, KBFG’s local-focused mission extends to the artists played over the airwaves. When there isn’t a live DJ, the station plays a curated mix of music, with 80% of it from Seattle artists and 20% from musicians from other states in the Northwest. Russell told me that by October, 2018, the station had already acquired music from 5,000 artists in Seattle alone. During my visit, the music collection was largely digital, with not much room for a physical music library of records or CDs in the Shack (although I did spot a few vinyl LPs).

Russell and Burton were among the group of folks who worked to bring KBFG to the airwaves. While Russell’s radio experience was limited to a stint at his high school station many years ago; Burton worked at Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles for close to 20 years in numerous roles, including Director of the Pacifica Radio Archives.

Burton’s work at Pacifica as both a radio producer and archivist informs her current programming on KBFG, as she regularly combs the archives to use on her “You Heard it Here” program, drawing links between current events and historical material. She’s pulled clips from a wide range of past programs, with topics covering everything from feminism to vampires.

Excited about both the current group of KBFG-LP volunteers and the possibilities of collaborations with Seattle institutions and venues, Burton told me that she was looking forward to having more people involved with the station, adding, “everybody’s invited to come and play.”

In March, 2019, KBFG moved to its new home, complete with studio and office, leaving the Shack behind. Its new headquarters, The Jack Straw Cultural Center, holds a special place in community radio history, having been established with funds from pioneering Seattle radio station KRAB (hear about the KRAB Archives on Radio Survivor Podcast #134). Over email, Burton relayed the exciting news:

Our new digs are in the Jack Straw Cultural Center which was built from funds earned when KRAB radio’s frequency was sold in 1984. There are production studios down stairs as well as performance spaces which we plan to use for live broadcasts. For now we are training new programmers in our studio/office including a Monday night session at 7pm called Office Hours when program director Tim Flanagan goes on the air inviting people to come in and learn how to do radio.

Thanks so much to everyone at KBFG for sharing your station with me. This is my 158th radio station tour report, my 33rd community radio station tour, and around my 21st LPFM tour. Read of my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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With its lime green accent wall, thrift-store panda, and hand-me-down theater department sets; college radio station KSPU.org is full of quirky touches and mysterious lore. Seattle Pacific University’s online radio station is a shining example of how much can be accomplished by a tiny, motivated staff.

In the center of the action on the campus in Seattle’s North Queen Anne neighborhood, KSPU’s digs in Weter Memorial Hall are located across from a student lounge where folks linger on couches and sip on Starbucks coffee. While showing me around the station last fall, Station Manager Taylor Muñoz remarked, “I love that we are so close to everything.”

A station window overlooks a plaza, Martin Square, which serves as a gathering space and a venue for events and concerts. The nearby real estate has been a boon for KSPU, which has thrown spring concerts just outside its doors using a stage in Martin Square.

Muñoz (a college senior) shared that “events are huge” for KSPU, which hosts them quarterly. While the station’s stream is important (and what makes the organization a radio station), these live gatherings make all of the work and the connections to the audience palpable to DJs and staff. “Sometimes it’s easy to feel like no one really notices what we’re doing, but then we throw events and [see that] people really care about what we’re doing, because we get really good participation at events,” she explained.

With a roster of DJs hovering at about 5 at the time of my visit, it was amazing to hear just how much KSPU does with a small team. Media Manager Michael Miller is responsible for social media and ticket giveaways, a job that used to be shared by two people.

Although Miller (a junior) did a show at KSPU his freshman year, his interest in the station grew tremendously during a school project when he was a sophomore. Tasked with finding a journalistic “beat” for a communication class, Miller chose KSPU and did a series of interviews and pieces digging into station events and culture. That immersion prompted him to get further involved.

Muñoz first learned about KSPU at a school involvement fair when she was a freshman. A music lover already, her interest was piqued and she started writing music and show reviews for the station’s music blog, The Panda Munch. By sophomore year she was appointed Media Manager and in her junior year she was Events Coordinator. It was a clear path to leading KSPU and she revealed, “I always knew I wanted to be Station Manager.” Her music immersion is not solely located at KSPU, however. She snagged an internship at beloved Seattle music label Sub Pop her junior year, telling me that it was “one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

It’s inspiring to hear that an influential label like Sub Pop has such an affinity for college radio in its home town, with several former interns hailing from KSPU. And, both Miller and Muñoz spoke of the strong relationships that the station has built with the Seattle music scene. Not only does the station help promote up and coming artists, but it also gives away tickets to big shows featuring well-known musicians.

The online-only nature of KSPU doesn’t seem to be a hindrance at all, particularly since its young audience is glued to laptops and phones rather than terrestrial radios. According to Miller, “Nobody I know has an actual radio in their room.” That’s a change from the past, when former Seattle Pacific student radio station KSSR 660 AM beamed to AM radios on campus.

The history of student radio at Seattle Pacific University is murky, but I’ve found references to 660 AM carrier current broadcasts in the 1970s from KSSR, which was housed in Alexander Hall. That station appears to have been relatively short-lived; with plans for a radio revival underway in fall, 1999.

A campus news report from Seattle Pacific University in 1999 states:

Boomer alums might well remember the golden days of radio on the Seattle Pacific campus when KSSR broadcast in the ’70s. The student-run station eventually fell silent due to lack of interest, but a new generation returns to the airways soon, perhaps as early as this spring.

Get ready for KSPU.

The brainchild of 30-year-old transfer student Doug Russell, KSPU will be formed as a campus organization. It’s still in the planning stages with money being raised through ASSP and off-campus revenue sources…

At first, KSPU will broadcast over cable TV channel 44, which does not require federal licensing. Once the program has stable funding, Russell plans to seek permits for AM and FM broadcasting.

Today, KSPU broadcasts solely online. While much of its history is still a mystery to me, snippets of the recent past provide plenty of charm. Minutes into my visit, I learned about Woodstock, KSPU’s panda mascot. Emblazoned on the website, stickers, and other paraphernalia; the branding came to be not because of any sort of official school tradition. Perhaps a decade ago, KSPU staffers found a full panda suit, complete with panda head and decided to make it the station’s mascot. Nobody ever wears the suit, but KSPU brings the panda head to events.

A month before my visit, KSPU had a station bonding trip to a Goodwill during a leadership conference and found a stuffed panda to add to the station’s collection. “Woodstock” now has a place of honor on a KSPU couch alongside a poop emoji pillow that was scored during the same shopping spree.

The sense of camaraderie at the station was apparent. Muñoz affirmed that KSPU is a “good creative outlet” for students, with Miller adding that it’s also “a great way to have diverse perspectives” represented. They both were proud that the station was reaching folks on the small campus of around 4,000 students, telling me the sense of accomplishment felt when spotting KSPU stickers on computers and water bottles owned by people who they’d never met.

Thanks to Taylor Muñoz and Michael Miller for the tour of KSPU. This is my 157th radio station tour report and my 103rd college radio station tour. See all of my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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My 5th and final radio station visit at the end of a long day of Seattle touring brought me to an interesting arts enclave in Warren G. Magnuson Park in northeast Seattle. My destination, the newish low power FM (LPFM) community radio station SPACE 101.1 (KMGP-LP), which is a project of the Sand Point Arts and Cultural Exchange (SPACE).

I arrived at the park after dark and was told to look for the old gatehouse. A former military base, Magnuson Park is full of historical buildings, lending charm to SPACE 101.1’s perch above one of the park’s entry points. Formerly a Sergeant at Arms quarters dating back to the 1940s, there are some funky quirks, including remnants of an old bathroom, bank, and armory.

SPACE’s Executive Director Julianna Ross and Space 101.1 Program Director Eric Zappa welcomed me for a relaxing chat and tour. Ross has been hard at work on restoration, advocacy, and arts projects in Magnuson Park since 2004 through her work with SPACE. The non-profit also runs a gallery and she and Zappa explained that they are excited to do more programming and endeavors that take advantage of the synergistic relationship between the gallery and the radio station.

A few ideas include grants for on-air projects by local artists and more artist interviews on air. A recent gallery show about protest art inspired an on-air show featuring protest songs, which Zappa acknowledged is just a small example of the types of collaborations that could happen.

The 350 acre Magnuson Park has undergone big changes since it transitioned from its former function as a Navy support base. A number of historic buildings have been restored and a few buildings have been converted to housing. When I visited in October, 2018, Ross told me that by the end of 2019, there are expected to be around 1,000 residents in Magnuson Park.

As a hyper-local LPFM community radio station, Space 101.1 launched over FM on October 6, 2017, so was just over a year old when I visited. Inspired by the LPFM opportunity, Ross marveled at the low cost to apply and get started, while simultaneously reminiscing about all of the hard work and volunteer hours required. After just a year on FM, the station was already attracting dedicated show hosts, garnering unsolicited donations, and inspiring listeners.

Drawing from the nearby community, volunteer hosts range from former college and community radio DJs to journalists to former city council members. The Sunday night programming especially caught my attention, with the station’s own improvised radio serial, “Broken Alaska” and a vocal improv-oriented show “Sound Improv Live!” Other locally-produced programs on the schedule include “Magnuson Nature News,” public affairs show “The Bridge,” as well as a variety of music shows.

With a background in college radio at Ithaca College’s WICB, Zappa said that he didn’t want to be a commercial radio DJ, but easily embraces the allure of community radio at Space 101.1, recounting, “this is my dream gig when I was 22 and it’s still pretty cool now.” In addition to planning the schedule and co-hosting a show (“Wedgwood Rocks,” in a nod to an iconic rock formation in the neighborhood) with his wife, Zappa also crafts a curated mix of music and local voices that airs when there’s no live DJ or host. His goal is to make the station sound “warm and neighborhoody.”

Engaging with local residents is a huge part of the station’s ethos and Ross told me that a big goal is to work directly with folks who live in the park. She’s been working on various grants to aid with radio training for volunteers and an early project did just that with middle school girls. While the physical space isn’t as accessible as they’d like; Ross is hopeful that the technology of radio will allow for remote participation for volunteers who can’t physically get to the station.

Perhaps one of the sweetest tales of the station’s impact on local residents is Zappa’s recounting of a musician revealing his shock over hearing his band’s song on the radio for the first time. At an event, the band member described the moment to Zappa, telling him that he was so thrilled to hear the song on the radio that he started running around his house, with his wife and kid screaming in excitement. Zappa said that the story gave him “goosebumps,” and is one of his favorite moments at the station so far.

Ross also expressed her profound joy in community interactions, reminiscing about a big party in the space before it was a functioning station. She joked about “staging” it to look like a radio station, with desks, posters, and microphones, before they had all of their equipment. Even though they weren’t on the air at the time, it was a successful event, inspiring her to do more community events at the station in the future. “I love interfacing with the community so much. And radio stations are so friendly and fun,” Ross beamed.

Thanks so much to Julianna and Eric for the lovely night-time tour and chat at Space 101.1. It’s a real treat to visit relatively new LPFM stations to see the growth of community radio first-hand. It was also cool to see “Radio Survivor” scrawled in dry erase marker on the schedule on the wall, as KMGP-LP is also one of the radio station affiliates for the weekly Radio Survivor radio show!

This is my 156th radio station tour report, my 32nd community radio station tour, and around my 20th LPFM tour. To dig into more, take a look at my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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It’s become somewhat of a station tour cliche for me to write about the homey feel of the radio stations that I visit. But, Bellevue College’s public radio station KBCS 91.3 FM in Bellevue, Washington takes that vibe to another level, as its station is located inside an actual house.

After a full day of travel and tours of three high school radio stations last October, I walked to the station’s front door as the sun was setting. Interim General Manager/Music Director Iaan Hughes greeted me, welcoming me into the radio house.

Existing in one of those interesting radio station hybrid categories, KBCS-FM is an independent public radio station with around 100 community volunteers, located in a standalone house on a college campus. It airs a mix of syndicated and locally-produced news and public affairs shows as well as a broad array of music programs.

Although it has student roots, launching in 1973, KBCS has shifted over the years, moving from a student radio station to more of a community, then an independent public radio model.

Student activism plays a big part in the KBCS origin story. “Appropriately it started with a protest outside of the president’s office here at Bellevue College. At the time it was Bellevue Community College and students did a sit in after having their initial request for a radio station denied. And that was enough to get the license and get the college kind of on it,” Hughes relayed.

By around the mid-1980s, the college hired a General Manager for KBCS and the station shifted to more of a community radio model, according to Program Director Patrick Whalen. Today, the station is a bit of a mixture. Whalen outlined that, “We’re kind of a hybrid. We’re independent. We’re …obviously not affiliated with NPR. We don’t carry any of the large public media distributed programs…We’re with Pacifica…So we have…Thom Hartmann…Because we’re so largely programmed still by volunteers, we’re clearly a community radio station.” He added the caveat that, “Because of the market that we’re in we can’t only do that just to be able to build audience.”

Shelves of vinyl on the walls at KBCS reveal the music programming trajectory of the station. As we sat in a front room/LP archive, dubbed the “Vinyl Lounge,” Whalen pointed out to me that the station initially had a progressive rock orientation from around 1973 to 1983, but then switched to an “anti-rock” format, playing jazz, folk and world music. He joked that it’s amazing that a station in the Seattle area in the 1980s and 1990s had “nary a Sub Pop release in the library.”

In a metropolitan area known for its grunge rock history and awash in non-commercial radio offerings, KBCS has worked hard to find its niche. Whalen gave his take on the Seattle radio scene, arguing, “We’re in a really vibrant public media market. We have amazing radio stations here. Some of the top in the country in their formats, if not THE top, so we have this big shadow to work within…We have KEXP, we have KUOW, we have KNKX…, Dance 89…a top dance station, so… we have to play in a different sand box…”

Today, about a third of the station’s broadcast day is devoted to public affairs programming, with the rest comprised of music. Hughes elaborated that KBCS has a largely “AAA” upbeat music format on daytime weekday shows (noon to 7pm), peppered with “some classics” going back to the 1960s and 1970s, as well as new releases.

Public affairs has taken on a bigger role in the past couple of decades, with the largely volunteer-produced news/public affairs show “The Morning Blend,” a huge source of pride for KBCS during my fall visit. According to Hughes, “It speaks deeply to the communities here in the Pacific Northwest. It tells stories that are not covered nationally or locally really…”

As an added benefit, this daily news show also ends up being a recruiting tool for the station, working to bring in new listeners from a range of communities. Whalen explained, “Our news and public affairs ends up being kind of a default engagement strategy for us because there’s constantly people coming into the station and telling their stories..,” adding that News and Public Affairs Director Yuko Kodama “…makes a concerted effort and is focused clearly on social justice issues and on stories and individuals and on voices that aren’t normally heard on air in this market so her work and her passion and her professionalism is a huge asset for the station.”

As I was completing this article in April 2019, KBCS announced that “The Morning Blend,” time slot would be replaced by the syndicated hip-hop talk show Hard Knock Radio, with “…KBCS’ national-award-winning reportage focused on social justice issues within the Pacific Northwest” continuing during existing public affairs programs. Other syndicated news and public affairs shows on KBCS include the Thom Hartmann Program, Democracy Now!, and the newly added Rising Up (as of April 29, 2019). Specialty music shows are mostly hosted and curated by local volunteers, with the syndicated Grateful Dead Hour also in the mix.

Genres covered include the general categories of “Dance, Trance and Electronica,” “Folk and Americana,” “Jazz and Classical,” “R&B, Soul and Hip-Hop,” “Rock and Blues,” “World,” and “Variety” (including an experimental music show and a program focused on female artists).

The non-rock music legacy at KBCS is perhaps most interesting in the CD and vinyl library housed in the rear part of its dwelling. Music is organized in hyper-specific categories, particularly in the international music section, which includes Flamenco gypsy, Cuban, Hawaiian, klezmer, French-Canadian, Eastern Europe and Brazil among it subcategories. There are also sections for gospel, RPM, Native American, early music, hip hop, jazz and more.

Hughes pointed out that some of the larger music sections are extensions of long-running KBCS programs, including a 30-year-old Brazilian show (Raizes) and the beloved Saturday afternoon program, Hawai’i Radio Connection.

In the midst of a massive music digitization project, KBCS has already digitized over 100,000 tracks using a Cloud-based program. Initially starting with the bluegrass library, volunteers and a work study student had made their way through the R&B collection and were working on the blues section at the time of my visit. Hughes was excited about the progress, saying, “It to me feels like the future,” especially in light of increasing issues with the functionality of CDs and CD players.

As I wrapped up my visit, Hughes spoke a bit about his passion for KBCS and what drew him to the station back in 2001, revealing, “I love the variety and the eclecticism. That’s what initially drew me to the station. I was managing a music store and one of my employees did a late night jazz show here and knew that I loved country music and Americana music and when the opportunity kind of opened to do a late night show he said, ‘hey, you should check this out’ and it was just really amazing to flip yourself down to the low end of the dial and find an enormous palette of music. Things that I thought maybe no one else even knew about. Of course..I quickly learned my lesson of how little I knew and…it really felt like coming home in many ways.”

Thanks to Iaan Hughes and Patrick Whalen for the wonderful visit to KBCS. This is my 155th written station tour. Please, scan through my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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Mercer Island High School radio station, KMIH is the third in a trio of high school radio stations that I visited while in Seattle in October, 2018. First licensed in 1970, KMIH holds a class D FM license, currently over 88.9 FM in Mercer Island, Washington.

Founded in 1969, KMIH has bounced around the dial and was in danger of extinction in 2002.

According to a 2011-2012 Mercer Island School District communication:

In 2002, the station fought to stay alive when the Federal Communications Commission allowed a commercial station to take its place on the dial. Today, KMIH remains on the air at 88.9 FM and 94.5 FM, thanks to a group of former KMIH students who are now members of the volunteer staff and Booster Club.

A non-profit booster club helped out KMIH and even purchased an FM translator at 94.5 FM in order to expand the station’s signal into parts of Seattle. That simulcast ended in February, 2017 when the club sold the translator. At the time, Mercer Island School District reported, “The Booster Club plans to use the net proceeds from the sale to contribute to capital projects that will enhance the station, the 88.9 signal and will expand student experiences.”

KMIH’s enthusiastic General Manager, Joe Bryant, is in his fourth year at the station. During his tenure, he worked to rebrand and reformat the KMIH. For years, the station was known as Hot Jamz, playing “current hits with little interruption,” according to Bryant. In January, 2017, he worked with his student Program Director (she’s now a college student still assisting Bryant at KMIH) to create a new brand and format: “88.9 The Bridge: Music and Conversation That Spans Generations.”

The music mix ranges from Bob Seger to Arcade Fire, with a dose of music from the Pacific Northwest (Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Alice and Chains, and up and coming bands like Naked Giants and Ayron Jones). Bryant described the format, saying that KMIH “superserves” local music, playing artists from the area every hour. With a background in commercial morning radio, Bryant explained, “I got here” and “I wanted to teach kids to tell stories.”

In addition to putting his stamp on programming, Bryant has also worked to expand the radio program at Mercer Island High School. He relayed that he started with just one class and 18 students and four years later oversees 80 students in three full classes. On top of that, he’s the school’s assistant badminton coach and the adviser for a marketing club (DECA).

Although Bryant did high school radio himself at nearby KASB (see my tour) in Bellevue, Washington, he never imagined that he would some day be a teacher. In contrasting his 25 years in morning radio, he opines, “this is the future,” revealing that his current gig working with students “is a real passion project.”

As we began our tour, senior “Mariner Max” was launching into his solo stint at the helm of KMIH during a National High School Radio Network broadcast (see my Radio World piece about the network). An award-winning sports show host, Max deftly shifted between his take on the World Series and other sports topics to montages of edited clips that he’d prepared in advance of the show. With four years of high school radio experience (he started at KMIH as a freshman), he’s a rare teenager who is already a seasoned broadcaster. Bryant beamed that Max is “one of the greatest baseball minds of any age.”

In addition to Max’s show, KMIH airs live sporting events, a number of sports-themed shows, talk shows, and specialty music programs. A few highlights include a fantasy football call-in show (“Fantasy Island”), “Hip Hop News and Sneaker Talk,” “Science and Politics,” a bluegrass and American roots music show, a program about movies, and a show focused on the school marching band (“Band Camp”).

Bryant sees KMIH as a “learning lab” that is also open to students from outside of Mercer Island High School’s radio program who use the facility to create podcasts and more. In an interesting twist, Bryant even teaches a class over the airwaves. During “Joe’s Class” on weekdays at noon, “Broadcast Media teacher, Joe Bryant, teaches his class live on the radio during the lunch hour! Joe is joined by students, teachers, parents and even the occasional celebrity!” The show description speculates, “Tune in and check out the only high school class taught live on the radio (that we know of)!”

At the time of my visit, there were also some shows hosted by folks from outside the school community, including a progressive rock show, Grateful Dead show, and a long-running late night music mix show (see a station tour video shot by one of its hosts in 2017).

I was also excited to hear that KMIH has its own radio station vehicle. Bryant revealed, “We’re getting a Bridgemobile,” and told me his plans for the remote broadcast van that was handed down from commercial radio station KMPS. “It’s going to be a bright red van and we’re going to have to get it wrapped with our logo…It’s going to have an old Marti unit,” Bryant shared.

His enthusiasm for high school radio was infectious. Reflecting back on his entire career, he told me, “25 years of morning radio was great and I loved being able to do that…but what I love more is being able to sit here and make the next generation get really excited about story telling…”

Thanks so much to Joe Bryant and everyone at KMIH and Mercer Island High School for the warm welcome. This is my 154th radio station tour overall and my 11th high school radio tour report. Don’t miss my recap of all three Seattle-area high school radio station tours on Radio Survivor podcast/radio show episode #177. Scan through my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives.

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High school radio station KASB-FM in Bellevue, Washington was my second stop during a hectic day of radio station tours in the Seattle area in October, 2018. Bellevue High School’s Career and Technical Education Department Chair Brad Conger reached out to me awhile back, encouraging more coverage of high school radio on Radio Survivor. I was happy to oblige.

Dating back to 1974 (see some early photos), KASB is a class D non-commercial high school radio station on 89.9 FM near Seattle. Housed in modern digs (Conger helped with the station’s redesign in 2012), KASB’s welcoming on-air studio overlooks a busy hallway at Bellevue High School. Unlike its former, tucked-away location, KASB’s current on-air studio is immediately seen and heard (thanks to an overhead speaker) by students and staff walking by.

Part of a broader media program, it is both physically and philosophically linked with television, film and photography studios and work spaces, with many of the rooms purposely built to be shared across disciplines.

I arrived after the school day had ended on an early release day, so things were pretty quiet on campus after the stream of parents picking up students departed. A handful of students were quietly working on computers in the large classroom where radio, film, and TV classes take place.

Around 40 students are involved with KASB, with participation open to high school students from across the district. Station members are required to have taken the school’s radio class at some point. Conger is himself an alumnus of the program, starting at the station in 1983 when he was a high school student (take a look at these 1980s photos of the station staff). He graduated in 1985 and then returned in 2002 to lead the program.

As the semester was just getting underway at the time of my visit, the schedule of student radio shows was still developing, with participants getting assigned their first solo DJ show the following week. Student leaders (second year radio students and beyond) were in the midst of training, just getting settled into their station roles, including Music Director and Public Service Announcement Director.

When there isn’t a live show on KASB, programming plays from a “jukebox” of music and station IDs. Students can host shows whenever they’d like, with most taking place during and adjacent to the school day. A morning talk show starts one hour before school and other shows run during 1st period, lunch, after school, and in the evenings. KASB’s format is Top 40 music, although live student shows are mostly talk.

Interestingly, back in Conger’s high school days, KASB also ran a Top 40 format. He told me that in the 1980s the station either aired live shows or turned off the transmitter. He fondly recalled playing Monty Python sketches over the air, telling me that back then the station relied on cart machines and turntables.

These days students play material from online sources or from their phones and Conger speculated that the CD player in the studio hasn’t been used by students since it was installed in 2012. However, he added that every year one or two students ask for turntables. One bit of technology that wasn’t around in the early days of the station is live video streaming, which is now shared on Twitter and Facebook during KASB’s live talk shows and archived there as well. The station’s live audio stream can be heard on MIXLR.

While there is a music format for KASB overall, students are asked to select the music and format for their hour-long shows. Conger tells them to think about their chosen format and how it might fit into a big city’s overall radio landscape and ratings. With that, there’s freedom to stray from the official Top 40 format.

Walking around the KASB on-air studio, one quickly grasps the variety of student shows that have aired on the station. As part of a class assignment, everyone is required to create a promotional poster for one’s radio show. Those posters plaster the studio walls, offering glimpses of the teen personalities that grace the Bellevue High School station’s airwaves. A smattering of show titles include, “Three Sleep Deprived Teenagers Talking about Things,” “Morning Waffles,” “The Child Laborers,” “The Cool Kids Club,” and “Thrash Zone with DJ Severed Limbs.”

The Seattle area is full of high school radio stations and I visited three in one day. Conger told me that there are around six stations that keep in regular touch through an email list and an annual high school radio festival. They provide a support network for each other, sharing tips and advice.

Conger’s students also participate in larger student media organizations, taking part in regional and national competitions. An impressive collection of trophies and certificates represent recognition from the Washington State High School Radio Awards, Northwest High School Film Festival, and the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS).

KASB is also a member of the National High School Radio Network, a group of high school stations that share programming across the network every Wednesday. On the day of my visit, KASB was preparing to air the week’s live National High School Radio Network show from nearby Mercer Island High School station KMIH (my next tour!). As I wrapped up my visit, Conger summarized his passion for high school radio, explaining, “I love the creativity of the students…It makes my job exciting every single day.”

Thanks to Brad Conger for taking the time to show me around KASB-FM and for encouraging me to visit more high school radio stations. You can hear about my three Seattle-area high school radio station tours on Radio Survivor podcast/radio show episode #177. Peruse all of my radio station tours in numerical order or by station type in our archives. This is my 153rd radio station visit report and my tenth high school radio tour report.

The post Radio Station Visit #153: Bellevue High School Radio Station KASB appeared first on Radio Survivor.

For the past four years, I’ve been sharing tidbits of my radio station tours on the Radio Survivor show/podcast. My travels have taken me across the United States, visiting a variety of stations from California to New York.

In this collection of podcasts featuring radio station tours, you’ll hear interviews with enthusiastic radio participants working in high school radio, college radio, and community radio. Numerous low-power FM stations are represented, some of which were just getting on the air.

Every station has a unique story and it’s been my pleasure to bring more attention to intriguing radio happening in every corner of the United States. Read on for a list of radio station tours that have been featured on the podcast.

To dig into all of my tours, peruse the full list in chronological order.

• Field Trip 91 – Radio K at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN  (2015); podcast #22
• Field Trip 97 – KBPS at Benson Polytechnic H.S., Portland, OR (2015); podcast #24
• Field Trip 99 – WHCS at Hunter College, New York, NY (2016); podcast #47
• Field Trip 100 – WPRB at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (2016); podcast #48
• Field Trip 103 – WOWD-LP Takoma Radio in Takoma Park, MD (2016); podcast #57
• Field Trip 104 – WERA-LP Radio Arlington in Arlington, VA (2016); podcast #57
• Field Trip 105 – CHIRP Radio in Chicago, IL (2016); podcast #60
• Field Trip 106 – Met Radio at Metropolitan State U of Denver, CO(2016); podcast #56
• Field Trip 108 – The SOCC Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO  (2016); podcast #63
• Field Trip 110 – KVCU Radio 1190 University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (2016); podcast #63
• Field Trip 112 – KBPK at Fullerton College, Fullerton, CA (2016); podcast #66
• Field Trip 113 – KEPC Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado Springs, CO (2016); podcast #66
• Field Trip 115 – KXUA at University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR (2016); podcast #69
• Field Trip 116 – KHDX at Hendrix College, Conway, AR (2016); podcast #70
• Field Trip 117 – KCHUNG Radio in Los Angeles, CA (2016); podcast #74
• Field Trip 118 – KPSQ-LP in Fayetteville, AR (2016); podcast #82
• Field Trip 119 – KUOZ-LP at University of the Ozarks, Clarksville, AR (2016); podcast #82
• Field Trip 121 – KUHS-LP in Hot Springs, AR (2016); podcast #68
• Field Trip 124 – WRIR-LP in Richmond, VA (2017); podcast #88
• Field Trip 138 – WPPM-LP at PhillyCAM in Philadelphia, PA (2016); podcast #97
• Field Trip 141 – WKCR at Columbia University in New York, NY (2017); podcast #136
• Field Trip 142 – WIIT, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL (2017); podcast #136
• Field Trip 143 – WHPK at University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2017); podcast #142
• Field Trip 144 – KVCB-LP at Vacaville Christian Schools, Vacaville, CA (2018); podcast #147
• Field Trip 145 – Wave Farm and WGXC in Acra, NY (2018); podcast #151
• Field Trip 146 – WGXC Hudson in Hudson, NY (2018); podcast #151
• Field Trip 148 – WVKR-FM at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY (2018); podcast #161
• Field Trip 149 – KDVS-FM at University of California, Davis in Davis, CA (2018); podcast #175
• Field Trip 152 – KNHC-FM at Nathan Hale High School, Seattle, WA (2018); podcast #177

The post Radio Station Tours on the Podcast appeared first on Radio Survivor.

My marathon day of Seattle radio station visits last October launched with a trip to see high school radio station KNHC-FM aka C89.5. As I approached Nathan Hale High School in my rental car, I tuned in to the dance music station while delighting in the dramatic Pacific Northwest scenery: dark grey skies and vibrant fall foliage.

Vibrant fall foliage adjacent to track at Nathan Hale High School. Photo: J. Waits

While listening to the morning show, I heard chatter about “Lap Day,” and later learned that as part of the on-air fundraiser, station staff agreed to run a lap around the school track for every $1,000 raised. I was amazed to hear that the morning show brought in $9,000 that day, meaning that the whole morning staff agreed to run 9 laps! A dedicated donor even stopped by to run with them for the final hour of the show.

Sign for fall pledge drive at high school radio station KNHC C895. Photo: J. Waits

Fundraising is a big deal for KNHC, which holds two on-air fundraisers a year as well as an end of the year online campaign. Overseen by a small paid staff, C89.5 is run by professionals who manage day-to-day operations and guide the student participants. There are around 17 volunteer hosts in addition to the more than 100 students who take part in station activities.

KNHC lobby. Photo: J. Waits

When I stopped by, morning drive host Drew Bailey was on the air and was joined by a student in the studio. A station veteran, he began at KNHC as a student at age 16, making this his 24th year on the air. The sole paid DJ, he’s on the air every day from 6am to 10am and used to volunteer as a Saturday night show host for 14 years.

DJ Drew Bailey in the KNHC studio. Photo: J. Waits

Although students pop in and out of the station throughout the school day (including before and after school and during lunch), they were largely absent from the station during my visit, owing to Nathan Hale High School’s complicated bell schedule, which is different every day. General Manager June Fox explained that students are adaptable and “they just plug in [to the station’s schedule] when they’re here.”

Student schedule of radio activities at KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

To get on the air students either have to pass the semester-long “Introduction to Electronic Media” class or an intensive 5-week summer radio class. For students, the work at the station is all hands-on, with “something different every day,” according to Fox. Students not only work with experienced DJs during live shifts, but they also do voice tracking and production work behind the scenes. Music is mostly played from a hard drive and I didn’t see a physical music library during my visit.

On-air studio at high school radio station KNHC C895. Photo: J. Waits

Fox has been with C89.5 since August, 2015 after stints at a wide range of radio stations, including public radio, high school radio, commercial radio, and college radio.

June Fox in front of C89.5 mural at the high school radio station. Photo: J. Waits

Since it was mid-pledge drive at the station, I enjoyed checking out the latest station swag (including customized Lego figures and rainbow socks) as well as the closet full of prior promotional items. Packed with CDs, stickers, buttons, fabric flying discs, music-loaded USBs, temporary tattoos, and more; the station branding emphasizes positivity and inclusivity, with rainbow motifs and purple and pink hues on many of the materials.

Bin marked “pronoun buttons” at KNHC with rainbow temporary tattoos. Photo: J. Waits

A sign on the wall reminds participants that the station is a safe space for all and C89.5 regularly participates in LGBTQ pride festivities. Fox shared that during Seattle Pride, station members affixed six thousand C89.5 temporary tattoos on attendees, remarking, “It was so much fun!”

“We Welcome ALL” sign at KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

An electronic dance music station, KNHC shows cover a wide variety of sounds. Although the daytime features more mainstream music, things get more adventurous at night, when sub-genres like house, trance, drum & bass, world dance, industrial, and downtempo/chill are highlighted.

DJ gear at KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

Additionally, Thursday mornings are devoted to 1980s new wave music. In the evenings, different resident DJs spin during the station’s “The Drive at 5” mix show.

KNHC sign outside the high school radio station. Photo: J. Waits

Conveniently located next to a small parking lot by an athletic field, C89.5’s digs (which it’s inhabited since 2009) include a large open space, with cubicles for the professional staff on one side and five production studios on the other. The on-air studio faces into the main room on one side and borders a live music studio on the other. Performances recorded in this room are archived on the station’s website as “live exclusives.”

Live music room at KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

One of the production studios (studio A) has a large window facing a main hallway in the school, with a quintessential high school view of lockers. Fox told me that this studio was the original on-air studio, but the window to the school proved to be too much of a distraction for students, as classmates would greet DJs by banging on the glass.

View of school lockers from studio at high school radio station KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

A nearby doorway leads into the school and there’s a classroom (not exclusively for radio classes) adjacent to that. During my visit, Fox and I quietly passed through a “dry art” class in that room in order to visit the promotions closet.

CDs in KNHC’s promotions closet. Photo: J. Waits

Signed artist photos, posters and framed gold records appear throughout the station, including a photo of Lady Gaga with the inscription, “C89.5! Thank you for spinning my record, babe” and signed by Lady Gaga. Fox told me that C89.5 was the first station in the country to play Lady Gaga, even inviting her to perform at the station’s listener appreciation party at the high school in 2008.

Signed Lady Gaga photo at high school radio station C89.5. Photo: J. Waits

I was especially charmed by a collection of artwork on the station’s wall and learned that the small canvases were decorated by musicians who’ve stopped by C89.5. Artists are asked to pick up sharpies and create a special drawing for the station. Pieces vary from simple signatures (sometimes with a mounted CD) to colorful abstract designs to stunning line drawings. It’s a crafty way to pay tribute to the musicians that pass through the station.

Drawings by artists who have visited KNHC. Photo: J. Waits

A veteran station, KNHC launched over FM nearly 50 years ago in 1971. Well-regarded in dance music circles, it’s received both local and national accolades. On its website, KNHC reports, “In 2003, The Village Voice recognized KNHC as ‘Best of New York’ high school radio stations thanks to its internet streaming, and the next year became the first non-commercial station in the United States to join the Billboard Magazine Dance Radio Airplay panel.”

Vintage C89.5 jackets on the wall of the high school radio station. Photo: J. Waits

Thanks so much to June Fox for the wonderful time at C89.5! This is my 152nd radio station tour and my 9th visit to a high school radio station. You can hear more from the tour on Radio Survivor podcast #177. All of my station visits are cataloged in numerical order and by station type in my tour archives. Stay tuned for more reports from my October, 2018 Seattle travels.

The post Radio Station Visit #152: Dance Music-Oriented High School Radio Station C89.5 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

It was after ten o’clock on a Friday night when I headed to community radio station Freeform Portland‘s studio in Portland, Oregon for a visit. Board President Becky Meiers had invited me and Paul Riismandel to join her on her final show before she embarked for Alaska and I couldn’t refuse. The co-host of a cassette-themed program, The Tape Escape, Meiers crafted a radio-themed mix tape for her show in honor of the Grassroots Radio Conference that weekend.

“The Tape Escape” on Freeform Portland’s posted programming schedule. Photo: J. Waits

The indefatigable Meiers played a major role in organizing the 2018 Grassroots Radio Conference, which was hosted by community radio station KBOO (see my tour), where she was wrapping up her work as Development Director. After a full day at the conference, she wound down with her music show, as she reflected ahead to her new job as station manager of community radio station KCAW in Sitka, Alaska.

Becky Meiers in Freeform Portland studio. Photo: J. Waits

Her tracks, which made up the “A” side of the mix tape, expressed her radio love, with songs like “French Radio” by Swirlies, Spoon’s “Car Radio,” and the Guided by Voices track “Radio Show.” Freeform Portland’s consulting engineer Todd Urick (also a college radio alum of KDVS, which was one of my recent tours) created the mix on the “B” side. His selections reflected his passion for retro pop culture, from the theme song to the 1983 video arcade-themed movie Joysticks to cheesy faux jingles, to a new wave parody song (“Palolo Valley Girls”) to radio station air check clips.

“To Radio People” mix tape at Freeform Portland. Photo: J. Waits

While enjoying the music mix (hear the entire October 5, 2018 show) and occasionally sharing the mic with Meiers, Riismandel and Freeform Portland’s Operations & Engineering Chairman Arthur Rizzotto, I also took in the surroundings. The studio is a dream for music nerds, with cassette players, turntables, CD players, a small vinyl collection and even a retro radio.

Turntables and headphones in Freeform Portland studio. Photo: J. Waits

The on-air studio has windows overlooking the street below, with a view of a bus shelter, food mart, and furniture gallery. The room opens up into a living room-like space with a couch, plants, sticker-covered cabinet, and a wall covered with a packed hand drawn on-air schedule.

View from Freeform Portland’s music library hallway. Photo: J. Waits

The narrow hallway leading out of the station is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves on one side, largely packed with vinyl in addition to some CDs and cassette tapes. In a place of honor adjacent to the studio entrance is a framed memorial to Negativland’s Don Joyce, including one of his cart’s alongside a packet of his cremains.

Framed Don Joyce cart and cremains at Freeform Portland. Photo: J. Waits

It was just two years ago when my colleague Eric Klein was on the scene for Freeform Portland’s antenna raising festivities, which he beautifully documented on Radio Survivor Podcast episode 41. Board member Jessica Ponaman articulated over email why she was inspired to help start the station, proclaiming, “To make sure communities have access to the radio airwaves!!!”

Officially KFFP-LP 90.3 FM and KFFD-LP 98.3 FM, Freeform Portland is one of the many new low power FM (LPFM) community radio stations to go on air following the FCC’s 2013 LPFM application window. The station began streaming online on April 1, 2016 and launched over FM on April 16, 2016.

Vinyl records and more music in Freeform Portland’s hallway leading to its front door. Photo: J. Waits

Considering just how new the station is (launching in 2016), I was flabbergasted to hear about the huge pool of volunteers (hovering around 200) currently devoting time to the station. Clearly Portland was hungry for independent radio. The schedule on the wall hints at the diversity of shows on air during my October visit, ranging from “Dark Noise” to “Part Time Punk.” The station has live DJs twenty-four hours a day, with 84 on-air volunteers hosting two-hour shows. To keep the schedule fresh, DJs must reapply for their shows every six months. According to Meiers, “We bring new people into the community quite often as a result.”

Program schedule on wall at Freeform Portland. Photo: J. Waits

A passion for music is at the heart of Freeform Portland and the station’s name is an overt proclamation of its freeform orientation. After my visit, Meiers elaborated over email:

DJs are given total control over what music to play, regardless of music genre or approach. There are no blocks of programming for people to conform to. We hold operational expectations (informed by FCC rules and the Communications Act, among other standards) as a community, but otherwise impose no limitations on what goes on the air. We do expect programming to focus on music, art, and cultural expression, so we do not have programs that focus on news or public affairs. That’s just the difference people hear on the air — the difference in our community, the difference in how we’re entirely volunteer-run, the difference in our overall openness to community broadcasting is something that gets expressed differently. We’re openly exuberant and human, and I think that comes through in the way we sound.

Sound board at Freeform Portland. Photo: J. Waits

Meiers first joined up with Freeform Portland in early 2016, even though she was already working at KBOO, recounting, “I saw that the community was going to put up the antenna together, and I joined in. There’s a picture of me lugging cinder blocks up a ladder…I joined right as the station was going on the air.” She added, “…the world of community radio was bigger than a single station, and…expanding opportunities for people to make media was my purpose. Helping to develop a freeform format station was doubly important in Portland, a city where affordable and accessible creative space is dwindling. The format is like an audio ‘studio,’ and I was really drawn to that concept.”

Arthur Rizzotto, Becky Meiers and Paul Riismandel in Freeform Portland studio. Photo: J. Waits

Many folks with radio experience and with Portland radio connections were involved with Freeform Portland’s founding and ongoing operations. In addition to KBOO, there have been intersections with XRAY.fm (see my tour), Radio 23, and Portland Radio Authority. A few of the Freeform Portland founders also had influential college radio experience at KDVS (read my tour) as well.

Radio at Freeform Portland. Photo: J. Waits

Interestingly, both Becky and Todd remain involved with Freeform Portland remotely. Meiers told me, “I keep volunteering for Freeform, even though I live far away, because I truly love the Freeform community and broadcast.”

View of Freeform Portland’s front door from within the station. Photo: J. Waits

Thanks so much to Becky Meiers for inviting me and my colleague Paul along during a fun Friday night broadcast! This is my 151st radio station tour. You can read my full roster of tours in numerical order and peruse field trips by station type in my tour archives. Watch this space, as I will have a cluster of Seattle radio station tours posting soon.

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