With the spring semester rapidly drawing to a close, college radio stations are wrapping up the year, hosting spring concerts (WHPK’s Summer Breeze festival is tomorrow, Saturday, May 12 in Chicago), and making preparations for the fall. With finals, papers, and graduations; it’s a hectic time. Some stations are also running summer camps for kids […]
In the fall, I had a great visit to see college radio station WHPK at University of Chicago. The focus of my 143rd station tour report (posted this week); WHPK just celebrated its 50th anniversary of FM broadcasting, although radio history at University of Chicago stretches back further. Chicago College Radio Tours I feel lucky […]
This week, community radio station KXRY-FM (aka XRAY.fm) announced that it is now the holder of its own FM license in Portland, Oregon. According to XRAY, “We received big news from the FCC: XRAY is now the official license holder of 91.1 FM! Much like renting a house or apartment, XRAY has been operating 91.1 for […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Yesterday was International Women’s Day and in light of that, this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast raises important issues about how we listen: not only to women, but also to people who come from different backgrounds from our own. Our guest, Jennifer Stoever, is the editor-in-chief of the Sounding Out! blog, which focuses on sound studies […]
I’m so inspired by radio historians and this week I highlighted the work being done for Northwestern University’s college radio station WNUR. While a student, Brock Stuessi started the WNUR Underground Archive Project to help preserve the unique materials in the WNUR music library. Although he’s since graduated, he’s still working on the project as […]
