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 […]
When Norway completed the shutdown of its national FM radio signals the tech sites and blogs were all breathless in reporting the news. But, despite the strong currents of digital triumphalism, the way of Norway is not a sign of things to come for analog radio. As Norway paved the way for the wholesale move […]
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 […]
Women made significant contributions to the initial development of podcasting that have been forgotten. Historian Jennifer Hyland-Wang has been resurfacing these contributions, and drawing parallels with women’s contributions to the formative years of radio. She joins us on this episode to share this history and examine the ways in which the structural biases of the […]
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 […]
Radio fans have a major reason to visit San Francisco this year: the SFO Museum just debuted the massive “On the Radio” exhibit in Terminal 3 of the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Until September 30, 2018, travelers can feast their eyes on 27 cases full of historical items related to radio’s past, ranging from […]
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 […]
On a trip last fall visiting my parents in northern New Jersey, during the evening the I tuned around the AM dial and encountered some fascinatingly unique local stations. I wished I could record some airchecks but didn’t have any easy way to do so, and I couldn’t find any sort of online program archives. […]
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 […]
