WRPI
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| City | Troy, New York |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area |
Capital District Eastern New York Western Massachusetts Southwestern Vermont |
| Branding | The Upstate Underground |
| Frequency | 91.5 MHz |
| First air date | 1947 on 640 AM; 1957 on FM |
| Format | College Radio |
| ERP | 10,000 watts, Stereo |
| HAAT | 113 meters (371 feet) |
| Class | B1 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°41′13″N 73°42′22″W / 42.687°N 73.706°W |
| Callsign meaning | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Owner | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Board of Trustees |
| Website | http://www.wrpi.org |
WRPI (91.5 FM) is a non-commercial free-format college radio station run entirely by students attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and staffed by community members and students. WRPI broadcasts 365 days a year with an effective radiated power of 10,000 watts, serving listeners in Albany, eastern New York, western Massachusetts, Vermont, and via webstream. The studios are located in the basement of the Darrin Communications Center and the FM signal is broadcast from North Greenbush. Programming includes a wide range of music, cultural and public affairs programs, live bands, special events, and sports simulcasts, particularly of RPI hockey, football, and baseball. WRPI has a large record library dating to the origins of the station, estimated at 43,800 albums, and a large CD library, dating to the start of the medium.
The origin of WRPI begins in 1934, when a sub-staff of WHAZ formed Campus Review, a program devoted to college-oriented entertainment and news for the Troy area. The show was run by a senior and junior board, as well as a group of apprentices, and programmed a half-hour of WHAZ's then-six-hour-long schedule on Monday nights. A new organization, the Rensselaer Broadcasting Association, began programming WHAZ's schedule in the spring of 1947, deploying a staff entirely from RPI's student body and working with the still-existent Campus Review.
An on-campus radio station was formed as an experimental carrier-current AM station in the fall of 1947 operating on 640 kHz, and affiliated with the RPI Radio Club (still existent with call sign W2SZ) located in the attic of the Russell Sage Laboratory on campus. WRPI's studio and 50 watt transmitter were located in the old barber shop in the basement of one of the Quadrangle dorms, thus at first limiting the listening area to those dorms. Later, another transmitter was added in the freshman dorms located east of the campus. The station soon gained the WRPI moniker locally, and gradually added more equipment from donations and war surplus. Around 1948, W2SZ, the RBA and the Campus Review merged into a single Radio Council to cut down on the proliferation of student broadcasting clubs. In March 1951, the Radio Council was divided into amateur and broadcasting clubs; by 1954, WRPI's listenership included 85% of all students listening to radio sets.
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