Not so long ago, student radio at Eastern Michigan originated
from a small dim, lonely room on the second floor of the
Quirk Building.
To get to the WQBR radio studio, one entered from the
hallway and went through a couple more doors, to a windowless
room where, after fumbling around to find the light switch,
you might notice the sound foam was peeling from the walls.
 |
AIRWAVE EAGLES: Some of the Eagle
Radio
staff are (standing, from left) Kevin
Pool,
Spencer Ponte, Mike Nedwick and
Kimani
Jeffrey, and
(seated) Nicole Mator.
Eagle
Radio, a student-run campus radio
station,
went on the air in November.
|
Broadcasting from the old studio, hosts say, felt like
sitting in a closet, talking to yourself.
That changed this fall, when the station moved to its
bright, spacious new studio in room G08 at Halle Library.
And when Eagle Radio, the new streaming Internet version
of WQBR, launched Nov. 6, 2008, the station stepped, both
literally and figuratively, out of the dark.
Previously, WQBR was "broadcast" only on campus cable
channel 10, accessible only to the 3,500 or so students
living in university housing — just a fraction of the
EMU community.
"People just didn't know about (WQBR)," said lecturer
Megan Gore, who teaches the student radio class now and
was a WQBR broadcaster herself as a student. "Maybe, as
students, we weren't very good at marketing our shows.
Also, maybe they didn't take it seriously. It's kind of
strange to have to turn on the TV to listen to the radio."
Today, Eagle Radio streams live over the Internet. You
can still turn on the TV to listen to the radio on campus
channel 10, but you also can pick up the stream from any
computer or Web-enabled mobile device in the world at www.emich.edu/studentorgs/wqbr.
Of course, it's a new Internet station. According to adviser
Randy Baier, the peak number of listeners so far has been
13. But, the station's potential reach is vast.
"I have friends in New York who can listen to my show," said
Nicole Mator, the station's Friday afternoon host. "And
it changes the show's content. I used to talk only about
things that were going on at EMU. I like to talk about
news; now that (dialogue) can be much broader."
The new studio is in the former computer store on the
library's ground floor, a space about triple the size of
the old one, with windows on three sides, in full view
of the computer lab.
People can see there's clearly something going on inside.
Students in CTA special topics courses A179, 279, 379
or 479 broadcast from about 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. throughout
the week, with a few gaps. The student DJs determine their
own content from hip-hop, R&B, rock, alternative to
sports talk, highlighted stupidity and a show that focuses
on music and film.
This year, senior Spencer Ponte changed his format from
a rock mix to techno, to fill what he saw as a void in
electronic music.
"I felt like it's something you don't have around here,
and I know a lot of people are interested in it," he said. "Which,
I think, is part of the point of college radio —to provide
things you don't get on terrestrial stations."
Gore said one of the biggest differences with the Internet
station is the need to follow FCC regulations to the letter.
Students keep detailed logs about what was played when,
and have to pay much closer attention to song lyrics than
they did when they thought nobody was listening.
Baier came to EMU in May 2000 from Washtenaw Community
College, where he helped launch WCC's Internet station,
Orchard Radio, in 1999. Eagle Radio, he hopes, will create
a natural pathway for students from WCC and students whose
high schools have Internet stations.
"Putting an Internet station up 10 years ago was a little
more esoteric," Baier said. "Now, the software has changed
so much that you can do it from your laptop at home. The
Internet is the way to go. Now, with wireless, people have
access through their mp3 players."
Baier started talking with WQBR adviser Matt Hanson about
launching an Internet station back in 2000. But, the idea
really started getting traction in spring 2007, when the
library space opened up.
Mary Ann Watson, electronic media and film studies professor,
took the idea to the communication, media and theater arts
faculty, who agreed to make the class part of the communications
curriculum. As a student organization, the station was
able to get some money from the University to cover licensing.
Technician Steve Martin set up the stream and a static
IP address and, after a couple days' troubleshooting, the
station was up and running.
"You can see the energy in (the students') attitudes," Baier
said. "When we moved over here, we had people coming out
of the woodwork. Everyone wanted to know when it was going
to be (live on the) Internet."
