history of wcdb and wsua

"It was the spring of 1962 and the college Radio Station Club had been meeting for about 15 years without ever getting on the air. A friend of mine and I were two freshmen determined to get on the actual air anyway we could. We found a local guy (Steve Seiden of Seiden Sound) who would install a complete closed circuit radio station for $500.00. We battled the administration and the Student Senate until they gave us the $500. The rest is broom closet history."

-Bill Alexander, Station Manager, 1962

WSUA Station History

The first traces of campus radio activity at the UAlbany campus appeared in the 1940s when the University Radio Council was formed. This organization made initial plans for the creation of a campus station tentatively called WCFA (College For Teachers, UAlbany's first incarnation) and WSCA. In 1962, the college became a University in the State University of New York system.

WSUA debuted on February 22, 1963 as a "carrier current" AM radio station, where the broadcast transmissions are propagated via and confined to the electrical wiring of the college campus. The frequency was 640 kHz. At the time, a school newspaper account specified the station's power at eight watts. The first program was hosted by David Hughes.

Bill Alexander (quoted above) and Don Allen are considered the founders of WSUA owing to their work in the Radio Council. Bill was the station's first General Manager, with Don to follow. WSUA was located in a janitor's closet in Brubacher Hall in what is today called the "Downtown campus." At the time, the format consisted of news, sports and music in the jazz, classical and Broadway vein. It was somewhat later that WSUA realized it could attract a bigger audience among the student population by playing "rock and roll" music, so a Top 40 format soon ensued. The song "I Want To Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles is said to be the first song played in the new Top 40 format.

In the mid 1960s, WSUA upgraded their studio space to the basement of Brubacher Hall, where space for more studios and record storage was available. The station's management offices were on the first floor. Around this time, the station's carrier current signal was rolled out to the new "Uptown" campus. The electrical wires used to carry the signal often imparted a buzzing sound on the transmission. In 1975, the station began to use the slogan "Buzz Along With Us" on some promotional items to acknowledge this fact.

A more progressive type of rock music format would be introduced beginning in 1968 and would later become the dominant format, displacing the Top 40 music. At the same time, WSUA began sports coverage of the Great Danes basketball and football teams. One of the more popular programs in 1970 was the Saturday Night of Gold, hosted initially by Eric Lonschein and, later, Andy Baum and Glen Trotiner. The station also featured a daily news digest called Earwitness News beginning in 1973. The news program featured, among others, Anita Bonita, who would later become well known on the New York City radio dial. By mandate of the Student Association, the station would be required to use this specific ID for it's top of the hour announcement: "WSUA Albany, subsidized completely by student tax paid to the Student Association of the State University of New York at Albany."

WCDB History

The migration from WSUA on the AM dial to WCDB on the FM dial began around 1968, when plans for acquiring an FM frequency and license were first started. These plans grew in detail and, unfortunately, red tape, as complexities related to University backing, financial scandal at the station, and technical issues were raised. During this time, the station's budget was frozen, and it was necessary to ask each station member for $50 (in 1970 dollars) in order to continue operating. To unfreeze the budget, the station was forced to move closer to the Student Association on the newer Uptown campus. Following the song "Get Together" by The Youngbloods, WSUA's downtown campus studios signed off and were closed. In 1971, WSUA began operating from new studios in the Campus Center, where WCDB exists today.

Between 1974 and 1977, station GM David Galletly, along with Eric Goldstein, Jeff Ronner and Paul Rosenthal were mired in paperwork and license applications in order to make the station's transition to FM possible. The FCC approved call sign WCDB for use by the University. A student lounge adjacent to the WSUA studios was annexed by the station to provide room for the new FM studios, which are still in use today. Jerry Jones, of UAlbany's Educational Communications Center was the station's first FM broadcast engineer, and would consult WCDB on technical matters for the next 18 years.

WCDB signed on to the FM dial on March 1, 1978 with the song "Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen, spun on vinyl by DJ Jim Saturno. The station operated with 10 watts of power in FM stereo. While WCDB played the record, the same song rang out on the campus carillon outside the campus center (in the fountain).

WCDB's FM format was news, sports and a variety of music including rock, jazz and what would later be called World music. The station would excel at Election night coverage for several years.

Although WCDB was operating on the FM dial, WSUA continued operating on the AM dial as a training studio for new staff members wanting to work on the FM station. This continued until 1980, when it was decided that the AM signal was no longer necessary.

In 1981, the station applied to increase its transmitter power to 100 watts, and was approved to do so on March 1, 1982. The first song played at the new higher power was "Rock and Roll" by the Velvet Underground.

By the late 1980s, dance music was added to the format of the station in the form of a long running weekly show called Club 91 on Friday nights.

Advances in audio technology found their way into the station. In 1987, local club QE2 donated a CD player to the station and CDs were broadcast for the first time. Both the Production and On Air studios were rebuilt in 1992 and 1993 under the guidance of broadcast engineer Joe Schepis, who would later found the WCDB Historical Society web site in 1996. Aging analog reel to reel tape machines were replaced by digital tape decks (DAT) starting in 1994, and in 1997, the analog broadcast cartridges used for IDs, promos and some songs were replaced by MiniDisc technology.

The format of the mid 1990's was music intensive, with some public affairs and news programs. DJs Brian Perlis and Ron Balle worked hard to lobby the station administration for a prime time program with a talk/interview format. In 1993 their lobbying succeeded, and the Ron and Brian Show was a pioneering program and would lay the foundation for later programs in a similar vein, such as Talk Show 91. To support the talk format, where telephone interviews would sometimes be necessary, a new seven second delay unit was put into service in the main studio in 1994.

WCDB first published their first official web site on September 20, 1997. It was designed by Jerem Curry. This was the station's first significant presence on the World Wide Web, aside from tribute pages created by station members. On January 17, 1999, WCDB made one of its first Internet audio broadcasts, carrying the Talk Show 91 program for several weeks.

In 1998, GM Glenda Bautista created a team morale-building exercise called Biodome, whereby station members and alumni were invited to camp out in the station's studio overnight. This was scheduled to coincide with the station's 20th Anniversary celebration.

On January 28, 2002, WCDB upgraded its aging transmitter and antenna with newer models. The 100 watt power level is maintained using a 300 watt Energy-Onix transmitter.

In 2003, the station invited all WCDB and WSUA alumni to its 25th/40th Anniversary celebration. Over 1000 alumni were contacted and about 200 attended, a testament to how well many station members value their years at the station. A series of on-air panel discussions were broadcast featuring stories and historical facts as told by the alumni. A remote broadcast from Brubacher Hall, now leased to the College of Saint Rose, featured additional stories of the early WSUA days.

Between April and November 2007, the entire WCDB studio facility in the Campus Center was gutted for asbestos abatement. The station was completely off the air during this time. New walls, studio doors and windows were installed, and the Student Association provided several important studio equipment upgrades. The station returned on the air late in 2007, at first sproadically due to the loss of student interest from the previous period of inactivity.

The newly-rebuilt station facilities were shown off at the WCDB 30th/ WSUA 45th Anniversary Alumni Reunion in October of 2008. The Brubacher Hall remote broadcast took place a second time. The Alumni dinner at Dutch Quad was also broadcast live. By this time, interest in various online "social networks" provided new ways for the station's alumni to keep in touch with one another.

In March 2009, WCDB experimented with filling extra air time with a computer automation playback system called TJSP (for That Joe Schepis Program). The ability of the station to automate fully is hamstrung by a lack of a suitable data circuit at the transmitter site. Also in the spring of 2009, WCDB approves a standup comedy specialty show, presently called "Alternative To Sleeping."

In the fall of 2009, WCDB's programming is available to users of the cable TV system in the dormitories. The WCDB web stream is used to feed the station's programming to the dorms. In early 2010, the web stream is added to Apple's elite directory of College/University web stations inside the iTunes player.

During the week leading up to December 31st 2010, WCDB switched its main on-air studio to what is called Studio B, which had up until that point always been the production and recording studio. The former Studio A, or Master Control, became a production room with Mac-based ProTools for recording live music from the center studio.

Although station reunions are normally scheduled every five years, in 2011 WCDB decided to have a reunion to celebrate its 33 and 1/3rd birthday, which occurred on July 1, 2011. On that day, WCDB DJs spun an all-vinyl show from outside in front of the Campus Center. Then in August, WCDB invited alumni to a casual "mini-reunion." Some on-air discussions were broadcast as in years past, and DJs from all eras spun many types of music on the air.

By Fall 2011, WCDB had upgraded its studio-transmitter link from the failing copper twisted pair wires installed in 1978 to a digital tie line using IP audio codecs. Network connectivity at the transmitter site also allowed unprecedented remote control and administration of the transmitter.

In January 2012, WCDB announced its intent to host a concert and alumni reunion on March 3rd and 4th in celebration of the station's 34th year on the FM dial.

Watch this space to see how the future unfolds for the legacy of radio broadcasting at UAlbany.

Thanks to Marc Gronich for collecting and verifying many of the facts used in the above history. Marc authored a comprehensive account of the station's history in 2003 which has since been available on the WCDB web site if you are interested in many more specific details and names involved in the station's evolution. There are of course many hundreds of station members whose names are omitted here for purposes of clarity and space. No slight is intended for any omission of name or credit. All alumni members are indebted to their predecessors for their dedication and hard work at keeping the station alive and growing.