Executive Board

Station Manager:	Defne Arslan	darslan1@jhu.edu
	Mike Normyle	mnormyle@jhu.edu
Official Wellingtonite:	Sam Messing	samuel.messing+wjhu@gmail.edu
Assistant Program Director:	Ife Sinclair	isincla1@jhu.edu
Technical Director:	Matt Ziegelbaum	mziegelbaum+wjhu@gmail.com
Sports Programming Director:	Brendan Vandor	bvandor1@jhem.jhu.edu
Financial Director:	Sophie Shulman	sophies@jhu.edu
Event Director:	Nick Evoy	evoy@jhu.edu
Event Staff:	Ryan Decker   Nicole Petefish	ryansdecker@gmail.com     npetefi1@jhu.edu
Publicity Directors:	Dylan Goldberg   Laura Peralta   Erin Donohue	dgoldb13@jhu.edu     lperalt1@jhu.edu     edonohue@jhu.edu
Promotions Directors:	Nicholas Roberts   Katie Walkowiak	nrober11@jhu.edu     kmw51688@yahoo.com
Directors of Campus Affairs:	Hannah Diamond	hdiamon1@jhu.edu
Concert Director:	Eva Yopes	eva.yopes@gmail.com
Head Music Director:	Ishan Dasgupta	ishan@jhu.edu
Party Liaison	Lucky Strike	luckystrikemusic@gmail.com

10-25-2007 (by Hannah & Sophie)

10-12-2007 (by Laura Peralta)

WJHU traces its roots back as far as the mid-1940s. Charlie Hamilton, program director for the station in the late '70s, noted that it began informally, as "kind of a lunchtime thing in Levering Hall". In the early '50s the station moved into the basement of the newly constructed AMR II, where it would have a home for the next thirty years. Transmission was over a carrier current that reached only the AMR's, meaning that only freshmen could pick up the station on its 830 AM frequency. The staff of WJHU felt constrained by the limited range, so they called to move to FM as far bask as the late 1960s.

It took almost another decade to turn the frustrations with the AM frequency into a concerted effort to upgrade the station to FM. In 1977, Hamilton and Judd French, chief engineer for the station, decided to push for the upgrade; the FCC was in the process of reworking the laws for 10-watt FM stations, so the station had to apply for the upgrade as soon as possible to get a license for that power. Under Hamilton and French, the WJHU staff worked with Hopkins administration and the FCC to make the upgrade happen; final approval for WJHU 88.1-FM came from the FCC in 1978.

The switch to 10-watt FM brought some changes to the station. Instead of reaching only a handful of freshmen, the station's signal extended off campus, reaching a potential audience of over five thousand people. Now that the signal reached off campus, Hopkins administration suddenly expressed an interest in the content of the student-run station. Hamilton remembers: "[then JHU President] Steven Muller was going to sign the final papers [approving the increase]. We were in his office, and he had his pen literally poised over the paper. He paused and asked us - 'You are going to run the lacrosse games, aren't you?' - before signing the papers."

The students responded to increased pressure to be professional, hiring a non-student - Irene Chamish (now Irene Vanger) - to oversee the station full-time and insure compliance with FCC rules and university expectations. The station operated twenty-four hours a day, broadcasting a variety of music in a "block schedule": classical music on weekdays, jazz on weekends, and alternative rock and NAR (Not Available Radio, meaning truly odd music) at night. In addition, the station featured a half-hour daily news program, as well as several five-minute news updates throughout the day.

A few years later, the FCC passed a ruling deeming 10-watt FM stations "insufficient use of the radio spectrum" and moved to deregulate them. This meant that anybody with a stronger transmitter would be free to apply for a license to knock out 10-watt stations such as WJHU. Rather than letting this happen, the students decided to upgrade to a higher wattage. In addition to securing WJHU's frequency, a higher wattage would mean a larger listening area. The students and Irene Vanger began work on the upgrade process at once.

At first, they decided to apply for an upgrade to a few hundred watts. However, they learned that a commercial station was applying for a license on the same frequency in nearby Hagerstown; a slight upgrade now would likely preclude WJHU's chances of ever expanding again. After conferring with the Hopkins administration, the student managers decided to apply for a 25,000 watt license, with a signal that would reach all of the Baltimore area and extend as far as Washington, D.C.

WJHU had seen changes in organization and degree of freedom with the movement to the FM band; the station became less avant-garde, more careful and professional. It was inevitable that such a huge power increase would bring more changes: says Hamilton, "We knew even before it happened that [the power increase] was going to have a major impact on the way the station was operated." According to Mark Margolin, a Hopkins student and active member of WJHU from 1981 to 1985, the students recommended that the administration hire a professional station manager and chief engineer, with perhaps a few more professional positions. For the first time in WJHU's 35-year history, students would no longer have complete control of the station.

The staff were willing to sacrifice some degree of control of the station for more wattage. "The hope was that if [WJHU] was going to be run by professionals, that the students could still operate it... why else would the students be working on [the upgrade]?" asks Vanger. The staff of WJHU envisioned an environment wherein professional managers guided and oversaw a student staff.

Meanwhile, the power upgrade was approved and the station kept operating at 10 watts pending the hiring of a professional staff. Summer of 1985 - several years after the approval of the power increase - the administration appointed a professional manager for the new station, David Creagh.

Creagh's vision of the new station shut the students out almost completely. According to a front page article in the September 13th, 1985 News-Letter, he planned to hire sixteen full-time and sixteen part-time employees. Only three of the part-time positions - record librarian, administrative assistant, and engineering assistant - would be targeted toward students.

President Muller was quoted as saying "for the part-time jobs we will try to recruit students, I would think"; however, Creagh contradicted this, saying "I will not operate on double standards... people aren't going to stop and ask if the news announcer was a student at the institution."

Creagh also foresaw format changes for the station, deriding "hodgepodge" attempts to schedule every musical taste. He predicted a switch to a classical/jazz format, including elimination of the rock and NAR segments of the current programming schedule.

Creagh didn't deny the possibility of student involvement in the station beyond the three student-designated positions: "But, they'll have to find us. Students who are interested in learning will be well received and treated as professionals. Students who come to us because they want to play certain records will be angry."

And angry they were. Student reaction to the announcements was strong and furious.

Alas, there was no way for the students to get back their original creation. So they went and made something new.

Student Radio needs to be run by Students

WHAT radio was founded in the early 1990s. Because of the determination to keep the station student run, the name was changed to WHSR, standing for Hopkins Student Radio. According to David Weller, JHU alumnus and former technical director for WHSR, the station's unregulated status, as well as the fact that the signal only reached the dorms, made for a "no-holds-barred, do-it-yourself" attitude.

While the Student Affairs office provided startup funds for the project, Weller claims that the administration "had a hands-off approach to it... they didn't want to lay down any mandates" about the way the station was run. Although the station's executive board quelled a few abuses, the DJs were largely given free reign on the air.

Despite this freedom, the students built WHSR out of nothing into a smoothly-run organization. The station broadcasted live concerts, and often interviewed nationally known bands. They broadcasted 7 days a week, 14 hours a day.

WHSR operated on a "carrier current," meaning that the signal passed through phone lines and other wiring within the dorms, Levering Hall, and the Charles apartments; the signal only reached those buildings. As WHSR's technical director Jon Polimeni explained it in 1996, "The buildings themselves are antennas... it's cheap and it's shitty, but it works." The carrier current signal was also completely unregulated by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission.

The radio station on Hopkins campus had gone full circle. From a student run radio station broadcasting AM carrier current to a professional FM station reaching the entire metropolitan area and back. Nonetheless, WHSR members had higher aspirations of broadcasting to the Homewood community through an open AM signal.

Two things stopped them: money and fear.

Initially, WHSR had no budget. They had to request money from the on campus Student Activities Council each time the radio station needed it. Eventually WHSR was able to get a budget, but just barely enough to sustain the station.

There also wasn't a full push to go to the FCC regulated AM signal because the radio would lose the "anything goes" atmosphere. Students also were afraid that if the radio station increased it's power, the administration would remove students from it again.

As time progressed, the already old broadcasting equipment just became older and more unreliable. Adrian Breeman, the station manager of WHSR in the late 90's, remembers having to get the distribution amplifier fixed nearly monthly.

In 2000, the bubblegum and other student patches that held together the distribution amplifier and studio console fell apart. Students tried to fix the equipment, but they needed professional help. Unfortunately, the advice and work needed for the equipment demanded more money than the SAC was willing to hand out.

It seemed as though the radio station was doomed.

WJHU Reborn

Then Assistant Station Manager Lucianne Walkowicz and Technical Director Ryan Tabone decided to take on the responsibility to find a way to rebuild the station. They both felt student radio was something too important to just let go.

Not only did they want to bring the station back though, they wanted to make it better. The clock radio that you had to hold to the wall of your dorm to hear the radio station was just not cutting it.

They researched the options of broadcasting on AM, FM, and over the internet. The FCC regulations that AM and FM broadcasting brought were very difficult for a start up station with limited funds. Internet Radio at the time was being completely rehauled and, at times, banned due to limitations put on by the RIAA. The future seemed bleak.

The summer of 2002 brought new hope however. Graduating Walkowicz got sophomores Yann Brandt and Shannon Chang to continue the work with senior Ryan Tabone. At the same time, new laws made internet radio seem like a more palatable solution. Not only would the radio station reach a large amount of people like the founders of the original WJHU wanted, but they would still be able to have the anything goes approach of WHSR.

The triumvirate of Brandt, Chang, and Tabone worked diligently that summer and the following semesters. They left the SAC to work directly with the Special Assistant to the Dean of Student Life, Dr. Bill Smedick. The radio station finally had the funds and power to get itself back on the air. A new executive board was formed and, after what seemed like forever, the equipment was repaired and installed. The radio station was ready to broadcast again.

The only other change this time around was the name. The original founders of the radio station ultimately wanted to have a free form radio station that everyone could enjoy. And while it took a long time to get there, the station can now be just that. For that reason, we have reclaimed the letters that initially made such a big impact on Johns Hopkins campus, WJHU.

Only this time ... it's staying with the students

Portions of our History are taken from the News-Letter Archives.