This gets nebulous very quickly. Most of the early experiments in radio were at colleges, and universities. In many of these cases students were involved and its not hard to exaggerate that into a college radio first. It's easier to be concrete with facts like: WDBM 88.9 was the first college station to go HD.
Rather than bicker, here is a list of some that claim the title with legitimacy:
WIIT 88.9 (cable)
http://radio.iit.edu/
At the Illinois Institute of Technology carrier Current WOUB-AM 550 went live from Ewing Hall on December 15 1942.
WRUC 89.7
http://wruc.union.edu/index01.html
WRUC was originally known as 2ADD and signed on October 1, 1920. Two young men broadcast 27 minutes of music. In 1940 the station was given its new call letters WRUC which stood for Wireless Radio of Union College. In 1975 WRUC went FM operating at 10 watts. In 1983 the station moved to 100 watts and moved it's frequency from 90.9 to 89.7.
WOBN 101.5
http://www.wobn.net/
WOBC-AM went live in initially in 1948 as cable station on the third floor of Towers Hall. Jim Yost and Don Roose kept the station running in that era.
WKAR 870 AM
http://www.wkar.org/radio/
In 1924 Michigan State University founded this station. WKAR (East Lansing) is licensed after experimental operations dating back to 1917. At the very least it is Michigan's first educational radio station.
WFIU 103.7 FM
http://www.indiana.edu/~wfiu/index.html
On January 5, 1922 professor Rolla Roy Ramsey conducted a demonstration of "wireless telephony" for a group of 75 students and faculty. In his early experiments, Ramsey successfully received signals from as far away as Denver, Wichita, Pittsburgh, and Oklahoma City. By 1950 Indiana University was running an FM outlet.
...and read this too. Personally I feel that WKAR is the first public station, and that WRUC is the first "college" station. Any other contenders?
Monday, October 31, 2005
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88.1 WESU in Middletown CT make an interesting claim as the second... 1939. and perpuort to know who was first.
ReplyDeleteRadio established at Wesleyan in the basement of Clark Hall. This is the SECOND known college radio station in the country (the first was Brown).
WBRU claims to have gone on air in 1966. this is clearly sketchy
ReplyDeleteThat was WBRU-AM there was an AM on campus that was older: this is from BSRlive.com:
ReplyDeleteHISTORY OF BSR, WBRU, AND THE BROWN NETWORK
"The Brown Network" began in 1936 as the first student-run radio station in the country. It was a carrier-current AM station broadcasting to Brown dorms. Eventually the station's name was changed to "WBRU-AM." In 1966, some of the station's members secured a loan from the University and founded the radio station WBRU-FM (95.5), while others continued the student-oriented AM tradition. WBRU-FM became a commercial corporation, financially and legally separate from Brown University, while WBRU-AM continued to operate for the Brown community and surrounding areas in the college radio tradition. The AM signal in time became virtually inaudible. During the mid-1990s, a few students worked to find a new, more audible outlet for those still broadcasting in the older, experimental, student tradition. In 1997, WBRU-AM became "Brown Student Radio" (BSR) and started broadcasting on WELH-FM (88.1).