... In addition to being the network's chief announcer and a news producer and anchor, Davidson has also been WPR's unofficial historian. When somebody wants to know when the first WPR call-in show aired, or the first time they played jazz, they turn to him. And if he doesn't know, he hunts through the station's voluminous archives to find out.
Davidson has now taken that interest and passion and turned it into "9XM Talking: WHA Radio and the Wisconsin Idea" (UW Press, $34.95). It's an engaging account of the station's long history, from its fledgling days largely as an experiment for University of Wisconsin physics and engineering students to the oldest public radio station in the country.
He says he hoped the book would give due honors to a physics professor named Earle Terry, who founded the station and kept it going against the odds. And he always wanted to come as close as possible to answering the question that radio historians have argued about for years. Is WHA/AM, as the plaque outside Vilas Hall tells it, really the oldest radio station in the United States?
Davidson will read from and sign copies of "9XM Talking" -- and likely answer questions about the "oldest station" controversy -- at University Book Store in Hilldale Shopping Center, 702 Midvale Blvd., at 7 p.m. next Tuesday. ...
