Purdue (Dorms) Radio Network

[epmark]

I was a freshman in Tarkington Hall in 76-77 and worked the turntables at WLAY, one of
6 or 7 stations on the Purdue Radio Network, a closed-carrier FM (90.1) and AM (630) station.
Each dorm provided 24 hours of "programming" (although much of the time they played Q95).
There was rivalry between the network stations, especially from WCCR (Cary Quad). There's
no hits when I google "Purdue Radio Network". Anyone know whatever happened to PRN,
and what year it met its demise? Is everything "cable radio" at Purdue now? Is there a
"student" station (maybe web only), unlike WBAA-am/fm ?

 

[MacOConnor]

I was a freshman in Tarkington Hall in 76-77 and worked the turntables at WLAY, one of
6 or 7 stations on the Purdue Radio Network, a closed-carrier FM (90.1) and AM (630) station.
Each dorm provided 24 hours of "programming" (although much of the time they played Q95).
There was rivalry between the network stations, especially from WCCR (Cary Quad). There's
no hits when I google "Purdue Radio Network". Anyone know whatever happened to PRN,
and what year it met its demise? Is everything "cable radio" at Purdue now? Is there a
"student" station (maybe web only), unlike WBAA-am/fm ?

I was at WILY in Wiley Hall and WBAA-AM from 78-82. According to the Wiley Hall website, WILY is one of the only two student run stations remaining.

http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HOUSWiley.htm

The other would be WCCR which I just listened to on the web last week.

 

[Flying-Dutchman]

It's to bad that these guys didn't go for one of the LPFM channels for West Lafayette.
To bad they didn't go for the NCE frequencies either. Guess they needed someone to
help them out. To bad that I didn't know they needed help.

Pudue Student Radio on FM would have been a good thing!

 

[RDO]

It's too bad that Purdue didn't make WBAA-FM a professional/commercial student station.

I worked at both WCCR and the WMRH (Owen Hall). I had fun and it gave me some good experience.

Boiler up!

 

[jegrant]

I have wondered why Purdue hasn't applied for a full power NCE FM. They could simulcast their news/talk format on a bigger FM signal to an area that doesn't have much NPR coverage (at least on FM). Potentially, some airtime on the AM could be turned over to students.

 

[jcharles00]

I'm a little late to this thread, but I thought I would chime in...

I'm not sure when PRN died, and I've never been able to figure out why it went away. As far as whats going on currently here at Purdue, we have two operating (in some capacity) web only dorm stations, WILY and WCCR, and a newer student organization station, which I am the station manager for, Purdue Student Radio - a web streaming and low power AM station. the latter you can check out at www.purdue.edu/radio . WCCR is at http://wccr.student-orgs.purdue.edu/ , and WILY is http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~wily/

I heard that harrison hall was trying to get something going again, but who knows.

Re: needing help
If any of you would be interested in offering advice (or money! hehe) please let me know. We are always trying to find ways to reach more people, but the low power AM is kind of futile. Right now I'm trying to track down who might be in charge of the current cable broadcast system in hopes we might be able to get on that. It is rough to keep things running since we get $0 in operating expenses.. Purdue is one of the few schools with no student activities fee, so we're kind of stuck. For now we're keeping afloat with donations, other stations abandoned gear, duct tape and rubber bands!

 

[epmark]

Hopefully someone in the industry will donate some unused equipment. Tarkington Hall took the WLAY calls because an Alabama station abandoned a format and donated the jingles and ID carts.

 

[w9wi]

I have wondered why Purdue hasn't applied for a full power NCE FM. They could simulcast their news/talk format on a bigger FM signal to an area that doesn't have much NPR coverage (at least on FM). Potentially, some airtime on the AM could be turned over to students.

An educated guess would be that potential interference to WRTV (channel 6) is the issue. Too bad they didn't launch a full-power FM before the TV-6 regulations came into play but now that they're there...

That said, channel 6 becomes channel 25 in just under a year. There are five pending applications for new NCE stations in Lafayette and West Lafayette on three different frequencies. Somewhat surprisingly, they're all religious - neither Purdue nor any kind of community organization are behind any of them.

 

[Timewarp]

Actually this post is right on time. The FCC may soon be giving away the last low power FM
license for West Lafayette.
I understand Bruce Quinn helped IU get a license for their student run WIUX. He might be
willing to help Purdue students as well. I've never known him to charge for his work. You'll
find him at WHUM in Columbus Indiana.

 

[jegrant]

I have wondered why Purdue hasn't applied for a full power NCE FM. They could simulcast their news/talk format on a bigger FM signal to an area that doesn't have much NPR coverage (at least on FM). Potentially, some airtime on the AM could be turned over to students.

An educated guess would be that potential interference to WRTV (channel 6) is the issue. Too bad they didn't launch a full-power FM before the TV-6 regulations came into play but now that they're there...

That said, channel 6 becomes channel 25 in just under a year. There are five pending applications for new NCE stations in Lafayette and West Lafayette on three different frequencies. Somewhat surprisingly, they're all religious - neither Purdue nor any kind of community organization are behind any of them.

That's my point, in a nutshell. In the recent window, it was shown that (at least some applicants believe) NCE FM channels are indeed available in the Lafayette area - so I was just surprised that Purdue didn't apply for anything at all.

What I can't wait for is the "after WRTV clears 6" move-in fiasco. Seems like there are half a dozen or more low-band NCE FMs that would jump at the chance to move closer into Indianapolis proper. Although, I guess WICR does limit them somewhat, because they can't get too close to WICR even after WRTV clears TV 6.

 

[Timewarp]

OK! Purdue missed the last NCE filing window. The FCC says they won't open another one
for 88.1-91.9 MHz for many years.

But! But! But! The FCC says they will open one for LPFM before long. Maybe this year.
This would be better for Purdue Student Radio anyway. The NCE channels couldn't put a
strong signal into Lafayette anyway. They had to protect Channel 6. An LPFM can
broadcast right from campus and put a strong signal all over town. This is the way to go!

 

[jcharles00]

wow, lots of info already! I'm going to have to do some research to even understand what you guys are talking about, but I did just send an e-mail to WHUM inquiring how to contact Bruce Quinn. (couldn't find contact info elsewhere)

Tarkington Hall took the WLAY calls because an Alabama station abandoned a format and donated the jingles and ID carts.

ahhh! that explains a lot! half of the promo companies that service us put WLAY on packages to us. I couldn't figure out where that came from, since we've never used call letters. WLAY must have been the last station here to subscribe to CMJ or something.

That's my point, in a nutshell. In the recent window, it was shown that (at least some applicants believe) NCE FM channels are indeed available in the Lafayette area - so I was just surprised that Purdue didn't apply for anything at all.

well, don't be too surprised. WBAA is about the only entity on campus that would know about these availabilities, and this wouldn't benefit them. Purdue doesn't have a broadcast program, so no one would care in an academic sense. ..and all of us who are involved in student radio are in other disciplines and really don't know much about the radio industry. (our stations directors include 2 biology grad students, a CS major, a business major and myself, a computer technology graduate. hell, the last engineer we had was a civil.)

One of our former members actually found something which i think might have been the last NCE filing window last semester, which we looked at, but I couldn't make heads nor tails of the documentation, the "contact" person listed on the form was a jerk and wouldn't answer my (admittedly stupid) questions, and we assumed that we'd need a big chunk of $$ to do it, which we don't have anyhow.

if this is an actual possibility, I could probably push on some people around campus for money.. the real prospect of FM might be enough of an increase to our legitimacy to actually make people care.





thanks you guys for bringing this up. I'm already glad I stumbled across this board!!

 

[jcharles00]

FYI - just talked with Bruce. I know what I need to do when the time comes. now we just need to do some fund raising for a transmitter, antenna and EAS!