The Executive Committee consisted of John Ramsey - General Manager; Laura Grabsch - Operations Director; Susan Mullis - Director of Development; Art Greene - Program Director; John Merlau - Business Manager; John Ramsey - Chief Engineer; Bill Cunningham - Member At Large; Allen Livermore - Community Affairs Director.
Sub Department heads: Blake Wilcox, Music Director; Rich Kilbourne, Jazz Director; Ed McKeon – Folk Director, Chuck Dube – Asst. Chief Engineer, Kevin O’Toole – Production Director, Keith Barrett – Classics Director.
Staff: Adam Babis, Keith Barrett, Janet Bilan, Paul Bock, Pheobee Bock, Rich Boissoneau, Jim Bolan, Tom Bowman, Brad Boyers, Bart Bozzi, Marueen Brennan, Sean Brennan, Keith Brown, Warren Byrd, Peter Burkle, Steve Burke, Frank Butash, Mark Channon, Bob Celmer, Fran Cmara, Christine Cooney, Vanessa Cooper, Tim Costa, Lee Courtney, Bill Cunningham, Donna Dauphinais, Oscar Dean, Kathy Deely, Mark Delorenzo, Dave DeMaw, Mike DeRosa, Terrell Dickson, Rich Dittman, Vijay Dixit, Bill Domler, Stuart Donner, Stephen Doghty, Mark Dressler, Charles Dube, Randol Duncan, Linda Epstein, George Michael Evica, Wendy Feldheim, Vinney Fuerst, Dave Gablas, Donna Giddings, Laura Grabsch, Arthur Greene, F. Paul Haney, Cindy Holstadt, Harvey Jassem, Bruce Jefferson, Wayne Jones, Christopher Jordan, Bruce Kampe, Tom Kelly, Rich Kilbourne, Dan Kriwitsky, Peter Langley, Arne Langsetmo, Bob Lee, Gary Levin, Charlene Lewinski, Allen Livermore, Greg Lynch, Carlo Magno, Tony Magno, Doug Maine, Robert Martin, Tori Mazur, Ed McKeon, Ryan Melcher, Mark Melnick,John Merlau, Peter Michaelson, Dorienne Miner, Philip Mitchell, MAxashaun, Susan Mullis, Ed Nelson, Georgette Nemr, Ted Neihay, Kevin O’Toole, Serge Outairo, Steve Pankowicz, Bill Perrier, Devin Porter, Ryan Porter,Justin Pregar, John Prytko, John Ramsey, Christina Ribeiro, Hentique Ribeiro, Mike Ringland, Maurice Robertson, Mark Snatini, Ed Savage, John Scott, Barry Seelan, Ed Smalley, Carolos Sowell, Kapil Taneja, Andy Taylor, Christopher Theodore, Tiffany Tucker, Rich Vaughn, Felix Viera, Lynnea Villanova, Dave Viveiros, Terry Weichand, Lonni Weinstein, Lloyd Weir, Blake Wilcox, Kevin Williams, Dave Zaluda, Andy Zeldin.
One of the ads we were running in the Hartford Advocate had the headline “We’re Not #1” at the top, followed by “and frankly, we don’t care.” The ad continued “If you want to be the number 1 rock station in
“On WWUH you will hear new and interesting music form independent and import labels, as well as progressive rock from the majors. You’ll hear house, metal, dance, do-wop, post-modern, reggae and just about anything that’s new. And if you’re adventurous, we also program jazz, classical, folk and specialty shows. “WWUH Music for the brave and the free.
The war in the Gulf resulted in a frenzy of pro-American programming on just about every broadcast outlet in the country. It seemed that the electronic media was blind to some of the serious questions that were being asked in the print media and on overseas broadcast outlets such as the BBC. Questions about such things as the amount of civilian casualties (termed “collateral damage” by the Pentagon), about the wisdom and environmental impact of bombing operating nuclear power plants, about the cost-effectiveness of using a 3 million dollar cruise missile to destroy a enemy jeep and about possible biological or chemical hazards released onto the battlefield when allied troops deliberately blew up captured storage sites known to contain these kinds of weapons.
Even before the war began, while the
Cease Fire News, produced by Dorian Minor, delved into many controversial subjects during the war, and the show continued for several years after the war exploring such subjects of the harm the International sanctions were doing to the Iraqi public, the lies told by the US Administration that helped the public support the war and the horror of Gulf War Illness.
The frenzy of public affairs production that occurred as a result of the Gulf War caused backlogs in the single Production Studio that existed at WWUH at the time. The ECOM decided that the time had come for the station's public affairs producers to have their own studio, a studio that would be dedicated to production of news and public affairs programs. When WWUH moved into the new facility in November 1989, a room was dedicated for just such a purpose. Initially, we started to rebuild the old Autogram air board for use in this new studio, but were fortunate to have submitted the winning bid on a slightly used McCurdy audio board that had been repossessed from WSPR in
In mid 1991, the radio listeners in
As the popularity of the station’s Folkfone and Jazzline grew, the Polka announcers requested that a Polka Line could be added. Since it wasn't practical to keep adding cart machines to playback the message, the University's telecommunications department was contacted for help. By using the campus voice mail system a third concert line was added. This system would become known as the "WWUH Listener Line", with a voice mailbox for program guide requests and listener comments.
In October, we co-sponsored a concert with the Capitol Community Child Center of Hartford featuring the folk artist David Grower who performed in the Wilde Auditorium.
Folk Director Ed McKeon approached the ECOM in the fall with the idea of holding a folk concert to promote local artists. An interesting aspect of his proposal was that in addition to producing the concert he suggested that we should record a compilation CD of the concert and offers it as a fundraiser for the station. He felt sure that he could convince enough musicians to donate their time, and was confident that WWUH would fill the auditorium. While the ECOM was enthusiastic, they were hesitant about laying out the $4000 plus for the CD without knowing if they would ever be able to get a return on the investment. Ed suggested that we charge $20 each for tickets to the event, with the ticket holder not only getting in to see the show but receiving a CD or cassette when it came out. The ECOM thought this was a great idea, and gave the go ahead for the concert, to be held in May of the following year. Hence the Folk Next Door was born.
During the summer, one of the jazz staff volunteers brought a tape recorder to
In December, WWUH broadcast the Winter Light folk concert live from Lincoln Theater. This concert featured John Gorka, David Liska, and Patty Larkin who performed to a full house! The live broadcast of this concert was accomplished by having four dedicated lines installed between the theater and the studios: two for the broadcast and two for an off air return feed as reception in the theater wasn't very good without an outside antenna. A temporary recording control room was set up in a stage level dressing room. The stage mikes were split so that our mix would be independent of the PA mix. The radio audience's reaction to the broadcast was overwhelming.
In 1991, the University started the installation of a campus cable TV system, and WWUH lobbied for and received its own cable TV channel on campus! United Cable of Hartford was contacted, and they donated a modulator to put WWUH on the cable. Initially, staff had to house the modulator and rudimentary graphic storage unit in the cable head end, along with a fixed frequency tuner to pick up WWUH's signal. By the end of the year, United Cable had donated a converter that allowed WWUH to originate programming from the studio location. The station's channel was up and running in time for the students return to campus in the fall, and staff were quickly contacted by WSAM who wanted to know how they could get on the cable system. Staff helped them with the technical and administrative details, and they were on the cable by the middle of the first semester.
A video display was installed in the Air studio so that the operators could read the transmitter readings directly from the monitor without having to step through channels on the Burk unit.
The folks in the Communications Department upstairs in the East Wing of the
To enhance cooperation with WSAM, the student run AM station on campus, we had telecommunications interconnect the two stations with dedicated lines. This allowed WSAM to simulcast WWUH on their air when they would otherwise be off, and allow us to listen to WSAM for the first time.
All things being equal, a mono station gets out much better and much farther than a stereo station. With this in mind, engineering wrote a program for the Autopilot transmitter control system that would switch the station to the mono mode during certain public affairs programs that consisted of spoken word in mono.
The “Radio Playing” series, produced by Company One in conjunction with WWUH continued in 1001 with “The End of Human Frailty” and “What we See” with both shows taking place in the Wilde Auditorium. The Courant provided extensive coverage.
The station co-sponsored screenings of the movies “La Bamba” and “Goodness Gracious” (the story of Jerry Lee Lewis) at the Showcase Theater in
CDs received by Genre during the one-year period 1/1-12/31: Rock-1745, Jazz-482, Folk/BG-507, Urban-612, Ambient-xxx, World/Reggae-121, Blues-189, and Soundtracks-xxx, for a total of xxx CDs.
FM On Toast hosts included:
Jazz hosts included:
Synthesis hosts included:
Pubic Affairs Producers included:
Classical hosts included:
Gothics and All Night Show hosts included:
Special Show producers included:
News headlines in 1991 included: Cease-fire ends Persian Gulf War (April 3); UN forces are victorious; Warsaw Pact dissolved (July 1); Boris Yeltsin becomes first freely elected president of