Through the clear glass windows, a U-shaped table spreads across the large room. Several microphones spring from the table and towers of new radio equipment are stacked on top of the table. On the ground floor of the campus center, the new WVOF radio studio exudes a professional appearance, and had its grand opening March 20.
Rather than the previous cramped and almost hidden studio in the ground floor of Regis, the studio in the campus center is not only visible and large, it is also technologically top of the line, said junior and Student Station Manager Jeff Stone.
With three identical soundproof rooms, the station now uses a computer with a 160 gigabyte hard drive for easy access to music, minidisk players, a delay system, CD players, turn-tables and other new equipment that is “better than many professional stations have,” said Stone. One of the studios can be used as a production room to house a live band and have the opportunity to air their music.
However, perhaps due to the inaccessibility of the previous studio and lack of promotion in the past, many students feel that the station hasn’t been accessible to them, and feel a generic apathy to its shows.
“I find I listen to the radio stations out of New York more and listen to my own CD’s,” said senior Edward Hertwig. “I don’t really know what type of music they [WVOF] play or when to listen for any of the specific shows.”
Senior Elizabeth Jehle agrees. “I only listen when people I know are on,” she said. “They play two different types music at two different times … I turn it on and either someone’s talking or there is some song on that I don’t like.”
However, Stone said the station has been working on promoting themselves and making themselves more visible to the student community. Along with the move into the new campus center and the enhanced appearance and equipment of the studio, the station’s overall sights and ambitions have expanded as well.
“We’ve tried to make it easier for people to see it and make ourselves more visible,” said Stone. He says they’ve done so through the marketing department and other promotional aspects. The mascot of the station is the gorilla, and it will adorn cups, t-shirts and posters to spread the visibility.
Stone said that the structure of the station was “really disorganized and now we’ve really gone through and done a lot of work to reorganize and reevaluate what works and what doesn’t. If people see that something’s organized then people are going to want to be a part of it.”
A monthly program guide will circulate through the mailboxes with schedules and descriptions of the shows. Stone hopes to have the station played in the Stag, dining hall and throughout the campus center.
Because of security reasons, the station was unable to broadcast on the air 24 hours a day, but Stone says this may be a possibility in the new location. The station will also be able run two stations at once, one that is on the FM channel and the other that is broadcast on the Internet.
With a web-cam in the studio, Stone said they hope to be able to broadcast the video of the shows on one of the info channels. That way students can flip through the channels, “stop and watch and listen at the same time and think ‘Hey, man, I wish I could do that,” said Stone.
“We want to expose people to something they’ve never been exposed to,” he said. “How many times in your life do you get the chance to be on the radio, to have your own show and play what you want on the radio?”
Stone said that pretty much anyone can walk in and say they want a show. He said it is much easier to get in touch with staff members since they now have a central staff and have been keeping regular office hours.
Involvement has already increased in the station, said Stone. While last year the station had only about five or six student shows, there are 16 student shows on the air right now, with about 50 students involved. He said there are more students preparing to have shows once the new studio is fully opened, bringing the number up to about 20 student shows. Along with the students, there are about 60 community members involved in the station.
Most of the morning and weekend slots are filled by nonstudents, and their role is very important to the station. As part of the station’s license, they need to be on the air eight hours a day, seven days a week, even during school vacations. The community members are needed to air shows during the times when the students are not available in the summer or during breaks, to keep the broadcasting license valid. “In that respect their role is pretty big,” said Stone.
One such member with a long history of involvement with WVOF is Bob Felberg. As a graduate student at Fairfield from 1973-77, Felberg worked on the station and, continuing his involvement after graduation, has been on the station’s advisory board since the 1980s.
“It’s a really exciting time to be involved with WVOF,” he said. “I feel like a dad to it now. To see it go through so many low points and sometimes get to be kind of a drudgery.” He is now excited to see more and more students showing interest in the station. “It’s come a long way,” he said. Felberg owns his own music store, Moonies Music and Collectibles, and says he is a “music fanatic”.
He feels that the station is advancing and can broaden their scope even more. One aspect he feels can advance is sports. He said there might be a possibility for the station to become involved with the Bridgeport Bluefish and have students broadcast the games over the summer. Additionally, through web broadcasting, the station is able to reach different areas of the world.
While Felberg said that the station could take some steps to make it more accessible to the wider listening community, he feels that the station will do wonderful things for the university. “I think it’s definitely a drawing force towards” the school, he said. Especially in the new studio in the campus center, with tours of prospective students walking “past a bunch of students working [in the station] and seeing them moving around is a real good drive for the school,” Felberg thinks.
Jehle still feels comfortable with the stations she listens to. “I already have the stations that I know and like,” she said, and added that she would rather stick with those than wade through the multitude of different shows that WVOF has to offer. “It’s not like I’m moving to a different town and have to figure out the new stations.”
Jehle does feel that that the possibility of having the station play throughout the campus center would increase student involvement and interest. “I can’t imagine that people would start listening to it out of the blue.”
Check out WVOF on the ground floor of the Campus Center, and listen on station 88.5 or www.wvof.org.
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