WBRU
 |
|
| City | Providence, Rhode Island |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Southern New England |
| Slogan | Your Alternative |
| Frequency | 95.5 MHz/Channel 238 |
| First air date | Frequency: May 10, 1948 (as WJAR-FM/95.5) |
| Format | Alternative rock, Jazz, Hip hop |
| ERP | 18,500 watts |
| HAAT | 139 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 7313 |
| Callsign meaning | BRown University |
| Former callsigns | WJAR-FM (original 1948 callsign), WPFM (circa 1958) |
| Owner | Brown Broadcasting Service, Inc. |
| Webcast | WBRU Webstream |
| Website | wbru.com |
WBRU is a commercial modern rock radio station in Providence, Rhode Island that broadcasts on 95.5 FM. Its transmitter is located in Providence. The station is owned and operated by Brown Broadcasting Services, an independent non-profit organization, and is primarily staffed by students from Brown University.
WBRU's traces it origin to the "The Brown Network", a low-power carrier current station that broadcast at 570 kHz on the AM band, and whose signal was limited to the Brown campus. This first-ever carrier current station was established 1936 by George Abraham and David W. Borst. Abraham had originally installed an intercom system between his and Borst's dormitory rooms. The intercom links were first expanded to additional locations, and then replaced by distributed low-powered radio transmitters, which fed their signals into various buildings' electrical wires, allowing nearby radio receivers to receive the transmissions. Abraham originally conceived of the idea as a way to share his record collection and serve as a personal disk jockey for his friends. By the next year, he had installed wires through the trees on campus in order to connect to a number of buildings, assigning students in individual dormitories to act as "section managers" who would receive the signal and retransmit it throughout the rest of their building. After being recognized as an extra-curricular activity, The Brown Network was assigned a studio and control room located in the Faunce House student union building.
The New England Hurricane of 1938 destroyed most of the distribution wires, and Borst and Abraham were forced to move the wires into the steam tunnels beneath the campus. On November 3, 1939, David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America (whose son attended Brown) made a broadcast over The Brown Network. On February 17-18, 1940 an organizing convention for the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) was held at Brown, attended by representatives from twelve colleges with existing or proposed carrier current stations. Abraham was elected the IBS Chairman, and Borst the Technical Manager. IBS's role was defined as a medium for the exchange of ideas and programs, in addition to working to attract national advertising contracts for the member stations. The first IBS intercollegiate broadcasts began on May 9, 1940, with a five-part series that was carried by stations located throughout New England at Brown, Harvard, Williams, and Wesleyan universities, in addition to the Universities of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
...
Wikipedia