Student Station on the Air

From the Fall 1951 Injun Newsletter

 

KWOU

Although the term wired wireless sounds like a double negative, it’s really the medium-technical term used to describe the somewhat unique transmitting setup of Omaha University’s embryonic campus radio station—KWOU.

 

The fledgling station began operations in the dying weeks of the spring semester, transmitting about 10 watts through the university’s electric system.

 

Broadcasting twice weekly (Tuesday and Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) on a frequency of 550 kilocycles, KWOU can be picked up on an radio in the main building, Snack Shack, or in the university parking lot.

 

With its studio and control room located on the third floor, the small campus station provided young, intense Bruce Linton, head of the university’s Speech and Radio Department, with the practical workshop he needed to supplement his students’ classroom theory with some hard-hitting practical experience in the often exasperating, always fast-stepping field of radio broadcasting.

 

In Linton’s own words, “Our overall purpose is to acquaint the student with some of the jobs that are to be found in small stations all over the country.

 

A glance at its organizational setup reveals that KWOU is equipped with many of the same posts found in a typical small broadcasting operation.

 

Linton himself acts as station manager. The staff also includes a program director, continuity director, a news and special events director, an announcing and engineering section.

 

All except the engineering personnel are selected from advanced radio broadcasting classes. Physics students handle the engineering duties.

 

Two physics students built and maintained the station’s transmitter last spring.

 

Other physical equipment includes a consollette, two turntables, a tape recorder, used not only for its standard function of taping shows for later presentation, but also for recording every minute of the station's on-the-air broadcasting for classroom study and criticism.

 

Since the largest segment of the programming day was and will be devoted to disc-jockey shows, a large record library is essential. Thanks to the generosity of local radio stations, music shops, students and some bargain hunting on Linton’s part, a good start has been made on a  classical, “pops,” and sound-effects record library.

 

However, the station’s programming is by no means limited to record shows. Two five-minute newscasts are sandwiched into each broadcasting day, along with frequent dramatic, variety and other type shows.

 

Linton thinks the station will be back on the air about mid-October, with the same twice-weekly broadcasting schedule as last semester. However, its broadcasting frequency will probably be changed, (“A South Dakota station bothered us on 550”). Right now, Linton’s auditioning prospective announcers, talking with candidates for the program director’s post and other behind-the-scenes jobs on the staff.

 

He’s probably getting a taste of the same type of experience he says is so valuable for his staff members—that of “working against the clock.”