High On Your Dial

It's worth the trip as WDCR spawns an FM sister station

WDCR, the nation's first commercial AM radio station operated solely by undergraduates, went on the air March 7, 1958. Early in January of 1976, WFRD, the nation's first commercial FM station operated solely by undergraduates, will begin broadcasting. Both of these stations are operated by Dartmouth students, all of them unpaid volunteers.

The station is run by a staff of over 150 students (some of whom contribute over 40 hours every week of their free time), makes use of an extensive record library of over 25,000 disks, possesses both the UPI and the AP news services, has developed a computerized program log and billing facility, and is the only station around that broadcasts 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Obviously, this is by no means another small-time, small-town, small-market radio station. Upon its completion, WFRD will join WDCR as being among the most sophisticated radio broadcasting facilities in northern New England. In case you are wondering, WFRD stands for "FM Radio (at) Dartmouth."

During the six years of planning for the FM station, staff members have successfully overcome more than just a few formidable difficulties - stiff competition for FM licensing from rival regional stations, the maze of bureaucratic red-tape involved in an application to the Federal Communications Commission, the complete design and construction of facilities from "scratch" by students, and the disruption of the continuity of student involvement caused by graduation and the Dartmouth Plan.

The application process was tortuous. Because the airwaves are a limited commercial commodity, regulated by the FCC, only two AM stations and one FM radio outlet are designated for the broadcast region in which Hanover is situated. A prospective radio station must make a case for its application, stating why and how it can best serve the needs of the community. It must convince the FCC of its fiscal responsibility, the legitimacy of its programming, the adequacy of its equipment, and the proficiency of its broadcasters and technicians.

WDCR's FM application was immediately followed by an application from a competing station in Lebanon, WTSL. According to Christopher Davidson '76, general manager of the Dartmouth station, it was a "messy situation." He would not go so far as to say that the WTSL application was made simply to block WDCR's, but he did affirm that the applications were hardly independent of each other. During the FCC review process, WTSL withdrew its application after realizing, in Davidson's words, that "they were in way over their heads."

A station seeking a new license must wait a year for its application to be reviewed. The FCC is obliged to consider during that time any applications advanced by other stations. WDCR's application appeared to be uncontested by the end of the year and the unofficial word was that the license would be granted. While staff members were celebrating at the station, a telegram arrived unexpectedly from Washington serving notice that during the last 24 hours of the application period a competitor, Powell Communications, had filed with the FCC. The new application contained at this time hardly more than a name and an address, but it was sufficient to delay the grant of Dartmouth's license, subject to the completion and subsequent review of the rival request.

WDCR was almost ready to withdraw its application. The licensing procedure and the ensuing conflict between stations had been an expensive process requiring some $15,000 in legal fees. The station's directorate had all but given up hope of ever having FM radio at Dartmouth. The unexpected happened again. Powell Communications declared bankruptcy and WDCR was granted its FM license on August 14, 1974.

Regulations allow a station exactly 365 days from the date of licensing to put a FM facility meeting federal standards on the air. Because of the uncertainty of the status of the WDCR application, not much tangible progress had been made in preparation for actual FM broadcasting. The nuts and bolts work remained to be done. When this year's directorate took office in March of 1975, they had only a few months left in which to put the new station together. Time pressure was extreme. None of the electronic work had begun and much of the original design required revision. A few months was not enough. The station requested and was granted a five-month extension until February 5, 1976.

When WFRD begins broadcasting shortly after the new year, it will in a literal sense be due to the efforts and skill of Ted Bardusch '76 and his staff of technicians. The technical crew has been responsible for the construction of the entire facility, with the exception of union carpentry. Everything from the printing of solid state circuit boards to the welding and milling of aluminum for the control panel has been accomplished by students.

According to Bardusch, the custom-made control board will be far superior to anything available on the market. (The station also is saving thousands of dollars because of this student effort.) Sound integrity between studios is insured by special construction features. The ten-inch wall between adjoining studios is actually composed of two independent walls. Even door frames are constructed in a similar fashion. The air-conditioning system is mounted on special springs to insure that its vibrations will not interfere with broadcasting.

The FM station will go on the air with one broadcast and production studio and one interview and concert studio. Plans call for a second broadcast studio in the future. The 165-foot tower atop Craft's Hill in Lebanon will broadcast to a 40-mile-radius listening area containing 50,000 people. Offices and studios of WFRD will adjoin those of WDCR on the second and third floors of Robinson Hall.

The expansion into FM broadcasting carries a price tag of slightly more than $70,000. Most of the financing comes from a $56,000 loan from the College (payable over ten years at eight per cent interest) and $17,000 saved up in the station's own reserve fund. Earlier loans from Dartmouth, the station boasts, have been repaid in full.

WDCR/WFRD's current annual operating budget amounts to about $100,000. The biggest line items are administration ("phones, etc.") at $34,000 and technical at $15,000, and the smallest, sports, comes in at $4,000. To beef up its advertising revenues, projected at $100,000 this year, the station has hired an independent sales company to present a more consistent image to local advertisers than was possible with a yearly succession of students. A Boston representative, New England Spot Sales, is retained for regional and national advertising. Right now a 30-second ad in prime time on WDCR costs $5.50.

The administration of the FM station will be essentially the same as that of the AM station, although it will have its own operations supervisor, Ron Fleischer '77, and its own disk jockeys. Program overlap between the AM and FM stations will be minimal, with the programs and commercials to be aimed at different audiences. The FM "snob" audience, confides Davidson, the station manager, is centered in the College and the towns of Hanover and Woodstock.

The FM station will air slightly more than six hours of rock and six hours of classical music daily, compared to its AM sister's output of about four hours for each. Five hours of Top 40 music on WDCR will drop to zero on WFRD, with some of the slack to be taken up by country & western and rhythm & blues. The allotment for some other broadcast categories will fluctuate between the two stations, but air time for public service broadcasting will stay the same at about three and a half hours a day.

The big issue is not so much program content but when particular kinds of programming will be aired. Certain hours have a larger listening audience than others. The progressive rock and the classical factions on the staff and in the Dartmouth community are currently vying for the prime evening hours. There has even been a petition circulated by two members of the faculty urging the Trustees to step in and force the station to play more classical music at certain hours. "It's absurd to think about responding to pressure groups like the faculty," Davidson says, but he predicts that some sort of compromise based in part on audience preferences tabulated in a random telephone survey will be worked out.

The relationship of the station to the College is difficult to define. Technically, the Trustees hold title to both stations, worth about one-half million dollars. The station foots all of its own bills, although it receives free office space, and puts its profits back into station improvement and expansion of services. The Trustees leave the actual management of the station almost entirely in the hands of students, although the staff does have a faculty adviser.

The actual student management seems to be unusually well qualified. About 140 of the station's members hold third-class operators' licenses - a federal requirement of anyone engaged in public broadcasting. The third-class license requires passing an exam which evaluates the individual's knowledge of electronics and of legal matters pertaining to broadcasting. Much of the exam concerns procedures of the Emergency Broadcasting System. The station itself requires rookies to pass a "board test" in which they must operate the controls under the pressure of different stressful broadcast situations. A prospective broadcaster must also participate in "style sessions" where he receives feedback on his actual air performance.

The station has on its staff six first-class operators. The first-class permit (the "Ph.D. of Broadcasting") says, in effect, that its holder knows everything about anything - from a small police walkie-talkie to the most sophisticated UHF band color television transmitter. This high number of first-class permit holders is truly impressive; federal law only requires that a station employ one, and the largest independent TV station in the country, WCVB in Boston, only employs three.

Many of these student experts hire out to other local radio and television stations, such as WNHV, as part-time consulting engineers during their free time. Many go to work after graduation as full-time technicians and personalities in all phases of the broadcast industry.

WFRD shows every promise of continuing the tradition of campus and community service established by WDCR. The AM station, for example, operates a news audio clearinghouse for the New Hampshire Associated Press. Radio stations across the state call WDCR during the day with news stories which Dartmouth collates and announces over the AP newswire.

During this past year the station received a special citation for its coverage of the disputed Wyman/Durkin New Hampshire senate race and three awards from the New Hampshire Federation of Women's Clubs for women's programming, public affairs, and children's programming.

Manager Chris Davidson summed up perhaps the most important benefit provided to the Dartmouth community by the station, perhaps the most complex and widest-ranging student organization. "One of our primary functions is the education of our members. We provide training in law, operations management, engineering, program planning, commercial production, sales and business, software development and audience research to name a few. WDCR is a place to learn as well as perform."