Some WBUR history

["Daniel Murphy" <danmurph@worldnet.att.net>]

The following is from Boston University's weekly newsletter, The Bridge.
The hardcopy issue and their web site include a picture in which you might
be able to identify the equipment. The note about the "W" stations is in
the original article, but I'm sure some of you can explain any exceptions
to this.

http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2002/01_11/bu-yesterday.html

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Radio days at BU: January is National Radio Month -- a time when people
are urged to tune in to a different radio station each day for the month.
This 1952 photo of an unidentified WBUR disc jockey spinning platters
encouraged us to delve into the history of the station. Eight months before
the School of Public Relations and Communications (now known as the College
of Communication) opened in 1947, WBUR went on the air as the second
educational FM radio station in Boston (Emerson College's WERS was the
first). Early WBUR broadcasts were made under the aegis of the Lowell
Cooperative Broadcasting Council, which used faculty and resources from
BU, Harvard, BC, MIT, Northeastern, and Tufts. The Raytheon Company
donated a 10-kilowatt transmitting tower. When WBUR opened, it was a
low-power operation -- 480 watts of radiated power -- and there were
fewer than 5,000 radio sets in the Boston area capable of receiving
FM broadcasts. Magnetic tape recording was not widely available, which
meant that most of the station's broadcasting was live. BU President
Daniel Marsh, who was an enthusiastic advocate of educational radio and
film, had spoken on the air many times. But in his inaugural broadcast
on WBUR he flubbed his speech when he departed from his prepared text.
"We expect great things of WBUR," he said. "Obviously, BUR stands for
Boston University Radio and the W stands for . . . for . . . well, it
must stand for something!" (Note: it means that Boston is east of the
Mississippi.) Today WBUR is a member station of National Public Radio.