WVBR-FM
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| City | Ithaca, New York |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Finger Lakes Region, New York |
| Slogan | "Real Rock Radio" |
| Frequency | 93.5 MHz |
| Repeater(s) | 105.5 MHz |
| First air date | 1958 |
| Format |
Rock (weekdays) Talk/Variety (weekends) |
| ERP | 3,000 watts |
| HAAT | 76.0 meters (249 feet) |
| Class | A |
| Facility ID | 13909 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°25′42.00″N 76°26′57.00″W / 42.4283333°N 76.4491667°W |
| Callsign meaning | Voice of the Big Red (Cornell) |
| Owner | Cornell Media Guild, Inc. |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | http://wvbr.com/ |
WVBR-FM (93.5 FM) is a college radio student-owned and volunteer-run station that broadcasts to Ithaca, New York, and surrounding areas. It operates at 3 kilowatts from a transmitter on Hungerford Hill, in Ithaca. A translator on 105.5 FM provides an additional and cleaner signal to certain areas of Ithaca. The website WVBR.com provides an additional web-based stream. WVBR recently purchased, remodeled and relocated to a new studio in Collegetown, located at 604 E. Buffalo St, Ithaca, NY 14853. A ribbon-cutting event was held on March 15, 2014. The new building is named the Olbermann-Corneliess Studios, after Keith Olbermann's father, Ted, and his close friend and alumnus, Glenn Corneliess.
In addition to the main station, WVBR-FM is relayed by an additional translator to widen its broadcast area.
WVBR is a commercial radio station, and is unusual because it is owned, operated and managed by Cornell University students. WVBR is completely independent of the university: it supports itself by selling advertising, and receives no funding from the university. Student and volunteer staff members are, for the most part, unpaid (some earn commissions on time sales or are paid a stipend to help operate the station during the summer and other times when Cornell classes are not in session). The station is owned by the Cornell Media Guild, a nonprofit organization composed entirely of students who work at the station. It acts as a training ground for students interested in broadcasting, as well as a serious commercial competitor in the Ithaca radio market. There are many other community members, of all ages, who work at the station.
WVBR is very involved in the Ithaca and Tompkins County community. The station features a "Community Calendar" segment twice daily, where non-profit organizations can send bulletins of their events to be read over the air during the morning and afternoon. WVBR also does remote broadcasts from a variety of locations in Ithaca, including from the Ithaca Farmer's Market and from local businesses around town, and it sponsors or helps to sponsor local charitable and cultural events.
WVBR's history goes back to 1935 when the Cornell Radio Guild was formed (incorporated in 1941), as a Cornell student organization that produced radio programs that aired on WESG, the forerunner of WHCU, in Ithaca. In the early 1940s, the Guild started a network of its own low power AM "carrier-current" transmitters in the dormitories. For a time, the signal of those transmitters was powerful enough, and connected to enough of the regional power grid, that the signal was widely heard beyond campus...until a hoax broadcast in the early 1950s caused the FCC to order the Guild to take steps to restrict the reach of the signal to the immediate campus area. It was at this point, that the Guild began a search for a suitable frequency on either AM or the newly emerging FM to conduct a genuine regional broadcast service. That search was successful in 1957, when a construction permit was issued by the FCC to allow the Guild to build and operate an FM station, first at 101.7 mHz. But before broadcasts were begun, the specified operating frequency was changed to 93.5 mHz, the only frequency where WVBR-FM has ever broadcast.
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