WDCR (1340 AM) was a college radio station that operated at Dartmouth College for over fifty years. During this time, it underwent several format changes, from news to Top-40 to alternative music and in the end, oldies. Licensed to Hanover, New Hampshire, United States, the station served Hanover and the greater Upper Valley area. The station carried broadcasts of several Dartmouth College sports teams in association with the Dartmouth Sports Network, a division of Dartmouth Broadcasting. The station's license was held by the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College.[2]
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|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Upper Valley |
| Frequency | 1340 kHz |
| Branding | Dartmouth College Radio |
| Programming | |
| Format | college radio |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Trustees of Dartmouth College |
| WFRD | |
| History | |
First air date | March 4, 1958 |
Last air date | August 2009 |
Call sign meaning | Dartmouth College Radio |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 68257 |
| Class | C |
| Power | 1,000 watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 43°41′59.3″N 72°16′45.3″W / 43.699806°N 72.279250°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
History
editDartmouth Broadcasting began in the 1920s, over copper wires linking all the dorms, using the call letters WDBS (Dartmouth Broadcasting System), changing to WDCR (Dartmouth College Radio) when it became an officially licensed station of the Federal Communications Commission, its first official broadcast at 1340 AM in 1958.[3]
WDCR's origins lie in a carrier-current station, WDBS, which was started on October 27, 1941 (after a month of test programming).[4][5] During the 1950s, efforts were made to obtain a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which would allow for an expansion of the station's reach to the rest of the Upper Valley; at 9 p.m. on March 4, 1958, WDCR signed on.[6][7]
The station left the air on August 22, 2008, due to damage to WDCR's ground system during a construction project near the station's transmitter location;[8] soon afterward, the station announced that it had transitioned to being an Internet radio station, WebDCR.com[9] (although this station's website still features WDCR's logo).[10] The station nonetheless briefly returned to the air in August 2009 in order to maintain the broadcast license;[11] in September 2010, Dartmouth College surrendered the license to the FCC for cancellation.[12] By this point, interest in the AM station had declined due to a combination of its time off-the-air and Dartmouth's expansion of its radio operations (in addition to WebDCR, Dartmouth had established an FM radio station, WFRD, in 1976[7]).[12]
References
edit- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WDCR". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "WDCR Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
- ^ "WebDCR.com - Dartmouth Broadcasting/Dartmouth College Radio". www.webdcr.com. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017.
- ^ "WDBS - 1940's". WDCR's 50th Anniversary. WebDCR.com. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ Tim Brooks. "College Radio Days" (Glenville Press 2013, www.timbrooks.net A history of radio at Dartmouth).
- ^ "WDCR AM 1340 - Celebrating 50 Years!". WebDCR.com. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ a b Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 1999 (PDF). 1999. p. D-280. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ "Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. September 19, 2008. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ "Dartmouth's 99Rock Radio Station Goes Global". March 12, 2012.
- ^ Fybush, Scott (December 22, 2008). "MPBN Threatens Service Cuts". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ Fybush, Scott (August 24, 2009). "Buckley Sells in Syracuse". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ a b Fybush, Scott (September 20, 2010). ""Radio 92.1" Comes to Scranton". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
External links
edit- FCC History Cards for WDCR (covering 1956-1980)
- NECRAT's pictures of WDCR's green- & white-painted tower
- WebDCR.com
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