WTSR vs. WTSR

When you look back at your life you can gain perspective and reassess events, small and large. So let me tell you the tale of two WTSRs. Recently while discussing carrier current radio stations with a colleague I realized that I personally disturbed the timeline. While writing this paragraph the memory is a bit hazy but I think I can give you the highlights.

Sometimes around 2002, I was at my desk reading CMJ magazine and I noticed there were two different radio stations using the WTSR call letters and for reasons that seem unimportant now, it was something that I did not like. Their geographic proximity made it likely they were aware of each other. So I contacted the carrier current station and proposed, somewhat forcefully, that they needed to change their call letters. Then, for reasons I cannot fathom... they actually did. Thus was born XTSR.

So let's first discuss WTSR classic, the original WTSR in Ewing (Trenton) New Jersey. One of the earliest documents I've found that mentions this WTSR, is the seminal Educational FM document, the Hearings report on the Public Television Act of 1967. They also appear in the IBS annual in 1966 and 1967 (below). The station was a 1 year old FM stick at that time, and it's studios sparking and new. Their listing reads: Trenton, WTSR-FM, Trenton State College, 89.7 mc., 10 w. It's the earliest incarnation of the station I was aware of...  (foreshadowing)

Until I found the IBS Journal of College Radio October 1972 Annual, which lists them as having been founded in January of 1959. How incongruous. The 1970 issue is missing that tidbit and the 7-year gap stands out. So I checked the 1965 issue. WTSR is not listed, but at Trenton College a WTSC is listed!  In fact both call signs appear in different IBS Annual and the National Radio Publicity Directories until 1974.  I think there was a period of time where the carrier current station and the 10 watt FM station both operated. 

To confuse the matter, another carrier current, WTSC appears in the 1976 IBS annual but only at Tri-State University in Angola, IN. Today it's known as Trine University. That station still exists today as the "Podcasting Station" TBN for Trine Broadcasting Network. [LINK] Between then and now Trine built 88.3 WEAX a station in 1979, and sold it off in 2020. 

There is of course a "real" 91.1 WTSC-FM at Clarkson University, which has been operating since 1963. The 1971 IBS annual lists it as founded in 1953 but I think that's a typo. Today it's a 700 watt station in an Arbitron-rated white space called St. Lawrence county, NY. In 1971, IBS listed them as a carrier current station on 560. But Broadcasting yearbook already had them on 91.1 FM. The 1968 IBS annual lists them on AM & FM. The AM is clearly carrier current on 540. The FM is listed at 5 watts, which could only be "leaky" FM if it was a legal operation. The October 4th, 1963 issue of Broadcasting lists WTSC Potdam's license being granted. But that conflicts with the FCC record.  (There was previously a commercial AM/FM WTSC in Stamford, CT though about 1950.) The Broadcasting Yearbook lists them at 2.5 watts until 1974, which agrees with the FCC that their CP was granted in 1974. Thereafter it was a 700 watt FM station. 

But getting back to the two WTSRs. I spent some time flipping through old issues of CMJ to confirm the timeline. Stations don't always report every week so checking multiple issues is important. When WTSR became XTSR CMJ itself was already faltering. By 2004, it was no longer on newsstands, It went bi-weekly, subscription-only that year. Charts were available online but then the publication stopped entirely in 2008. The first issue with the XTSR calls was March 25th, 2002. Despite the chaos, XTSR continued to report through at least 2006.  They launched a new website in 2008 www.xtsr.org, though it is offline as of this writing.

 Older versions of their Wikipedia page actually had a typo in their URL which they probably only realized in '09. It should have been www.new.towson.edu/xtsr/. Even on that early version they are already streaming and available on Channel 42 of the Towson university cable system. The "about us" blurb on the various versions of the site have no station history. The university site merely states "The station has been broadcasting from the Towson University campus since 1971." There isn't a word about their old calls WTSR, or the even earlier incarnations, of which there were many.

Their history dovetails with their big sister station 89.7 WTMD, whose history also states that it too has its origins in a network of closed-circuit carrier current transmitters on the Towson campus, beginning in the Spring 1972. That original carrier current station was named WVTS for the "Voice of Towson State." Never mind the other WVTS operating commercially in Terre Haute, IN. [SOURCE]

In 1974, the FCC granted Towson a CP to build an FM station. That signed on as WCVT in 1976. The calls stood for "Communications Voice of Towson". The carrier current station was renamed WCVT-AM but used as a training facility. The FM station was upgraded to 10,000 watts in 1981 and the carrier current network supposedly became known as WTSR 56 AM ("Towson State Radio") fully disentangling from the FM station. The carrier current station became the college radio station and the FM station became a more professional operation.

But the old call sign seems to persist for a long time. They are listed in SPIN radio concerts lists as WCVT in 1985 and 1986. In 1989 they were still listed as WCVT in the book Gigging by Mike Dorf.  The Gebbie Press All-In-One directory also uses the WCVT calls in 1992. They may not have been consistently operating. That's common in carrier current. Their 560 carrier current signal was shut down in 2003 and they switched to pure webcast. That's 20 over years later. Their official history says they became XTSR in 2004. That's close but the correct answer is 2002 at least on their charts. Their Instagram was still active through November 2024.

Looking for funding, big sister WCVT-FM flipped to smooth jazz in 1991 and changed calls to WTMD.  By 2002 it was a popular but bland AAA station. In 2021 the Your Public Radio Corporation, bought WTMD for $3 million. Their calls remain the same, but the students are long gone. Long live WTSR.

**Because the WTSR black triangle logo is so ubiquitous, I spent some time digging up a couple more obscure and less polished incarnations as you see above. Let a hundred flowers bloom.