On the upper floors of the Joyner Library at East Carolina College, complete radio studios are maintained.
These are not just empty studios. They are the home of WWWS, the FM voice of East Carolina College.
Actually when the library was constructed there was no such station operated by the college. However, plans were made for including a specially designed studio, control room and other facilities on the upper floor of the big new building.
For some time the studio was used for taping broadcasts to be mailed to commercial stations for remote programs fed to the local station.
Then, about two years ago the idea of an FM educational station was born when Dr. J.D. Messick , president of the college, A. Hartwell Campbell, president of television station WNCT and Wendell Smiley, college librarian were discussing radio and television. It was Campbell who suggested that the college purchase an FM station and develop it into an educational station.
Dr. Messick liked the idea and a sum of money was set aside to purchase the station.
It became Smiley's job to find a transmitter and he began the search. He finally located the needed equipment in Norton, Va. Station WNVA was discontinuing its FM operation and wished to sell its three KW transmitter.
The transmitter had been operated about 27,000 hours and was obtained at a low cost. New, the equipment would have cost the college about $18,000.
The equipment was dismantled and moved the Greenville where it was installed in the control room of the studios.
Its tower was installed on the roof of the building and, after an additional section was added to place the station on 91.3 megacycles, WWWS was born.
The top of the tower was 135 feet above ground and the station can be heard within a radius of 50 miles.
The station is student operated under the supervisions of Miss Rosalind Roulston, director of radio and television for the college.
It can carry baseball, football, and basketball games plus other special events which might be scheduled for the auditoriums on the college campus. There are lines to the auditoriums and athletic fields for remote broadcast.
Along with educational programs, the station will carry programs of recorded music. A record library has been built up and it includes classical, semi-classical, and popular music.
The station is on the air from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 2 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Sundays.
Soon the college station will expand its services on the campus.
Recently the Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity through its president Thomas A. Farlow and faculty advisor Dr. Orval L. Phillips, presented a check for $238 to the radio station. The funds will be used for installation of carrier AM transmitters in the basements of ECC residence halls, allowing dormitory residents to pick up the stations programs with any type of radio.
Librarian Smiley, who was station director, said the new limited range facilities will enable persons within 268 feet of any one of the new transmitters to pick up the station. It will operate on 760 kilocycles on the AM band and will retain its FM operating band of 91.3 megacycles.
The Phi Kappa Alpha raised its donation by means of a variety show.
Citation:
"College Radio Outlet Utilized," The Daily Reflector , May 14, 1958.
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