Re: WMUA Reunion

[RFGenerator <rfgenerator@yahoo.com>]

- --- "Martin J. Waters" <mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu>
wrote:
> >Joe Ross wrote:
> <snip>
> >I'm scheduled to be on Sunday from noon to 1
> >PM, if any of you out there are within range and
> would like to listen.  I
> >think this will be my first time doing a show on
> the radio in over 30
> >years
> <snip>
> 
>         I'm going also and will be over in
> Northampton drinking coffee on
> Sunday when you do your show. With the big 1 kW
> signal, of course, you'll
> be loud and clear. But WARNING: They have a board
> with slide pots now (of
> course). How about a bumper sticker: "Real radio
> people turn knobs."
> 
>         The RCA board we thought (and it was ) was
> so first class when we
> put it in in 1970 was reduced to being the newsroom
> production baord the
> last time I was in there a few years ago. Back then,
> we held up the student
> Senate for massive $$$ for the power increase to 1
> kW. Since it also
> involved going stereo, all the boards and big items
> in the chain had to be
> replaced.
> 
>         And don't go to the old location in Marston
> Hall. They're in a
> windowless basement in the new (new in 1970) Campus
> Center building.
> There's a great story about how the station was
> homeless and forced into
> limited operations for one or two years in the early
> '80s when the
> Engineering School suddenly (very suddenly) evicted
> the station from the
> old location without providing time for new studios
> to be obtained. How the
> h#$# they got away with that, I do not know.
> 

Interesting story surrounding the eviction of WMUA
from Marston in 1983.  At the time I was the manager
for WSYL a low power (a whopping 1 watt or so)
unlicensed station running out of the Basement of
Cashin Dorm at U Mass.  I was also involved with WMUA
as a tech trainer or some such.  WSYL had some space
in the basement that wasn't being used.  Anyhow when
the word came down that WMUA had to vacate Marston
(and it was done with virtually no notice) I
volunteered some of the unused WSYL space in the
basement of Cashin dorm.  I got the keys to the chief
engineer and basically one studio was set up there and
that's where WMUA broadcast from until early 1984.  I
got more than a little flack from the Residential
administration  for not clearing the move with them
ahead of time. However I figured that if I had to go
thru the usual U-Mass channels and BS, then WMUA would
have been off the air for quite some time.  Basically
I gambled that they wouldn't boot WMUA out and force
it off the air.  I told the adminstrator that I
promised never again to move a radio station into my
dorm without checking with them first. 

Mike "it's sometimes better to apologize later than
ask permission before" Malone
WDOA Internet Radio
http://wdoa.com 
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