While I was in a research rabbit hole this week, I found an intriguing tale of an early “broadcast” of a college football game through the use of a telegraph in 1903. According to the University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club, On October 31, 1903, the University of Michigan Football Team traveled to Minnesota to […]
Over the next few days, the station where I volunteer, Foothill College radio station KFJC-FM is broadcasting live from a music festival several thousand miles from home. With a fixation on underground music and a growing obsession with undertaking ambitious remote broadcasts from afar; my KFJC cohorts continue to amaze me (see my tech-heavy account […]
Musician, DJ and radio artist Don Joyce passed away nearly three years ago, on July 22, 2015. He left behind a voluminous archive of his KPFA radio program “Over the Edge,” which took off in new, chaotic and creative directions when he welcomed the participation of the experimental band Negativland in 1981, then joining the […]
On this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast/radio show, I’m pleased to share two of my most recent college radio station tour reports. In the episode, Paul Riismandel and I chat about my visits to WIIT at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and WKCR at Columbia University in New York City. Both stations are super interesting, […]
Jennifer Waits takes us on tours of two storied college stations, with deep roots in their communities. WIIT-FM is the student station at the Illinois Institute of Technology, housed in the modern Rem Koolhaas designed McCormick Tribune Campus Center situated at the intersection of Chicago’s Bronzeville and Bridgeport neighborhoods. WKCR is Columbia University’s station, with […]
College radio history is near and dear to my heart and I appreciate it when stations celebrate their origin stories. With many stations purporting to be the “first” at this or that, I’m always eager to dive into long-lost documents in order to sleuth out the veracity of station lore. As any historian or journalist […]
While touring through the “On the Radio” radio history exhibit at SFO Museum on Monday, I was reminded of a couple of college radio connections. Curator Daniel Calderon pointed out to me his “nod” to college radio in the FM radio portion of the exhibit. According to the exhibit notes, “As FM searched for its […]
KRAB was the fourth-ever community radio station in the U.S., serving Seattle, WA from 1962 to 1984. Like any community station, it broadcast thousands of hours of original and important programming during that time, documenting important social movements and voices not heard, or not heard clearly, in mainstream media. Former volunteer and board member Chuck […]
While I’m full of guilt over some of my delayed college radio station field trip reports; I’m elated that my colleague Paul Riismandel just shared tales from his recent visit to a community radio station in Hawaii. For intrepid radio travelers, there’s nothing quite like setting foot into an unknown station, taking in the sights […]
I recently had a short vacation on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Immediately upon getting in our rental car at the airport I dutifully turned the radio to the left end of the dial, where I quickly found KMNO-FM, Mana’o Radio, the local community station. Mana’o Radio turned out to be a wonderful travel companion […]
