I have always been tuned into Music. Moving to Chicago at age 17 i found WXRT and over the years have found many music stations from WVUD at Dayton to anyone I could find. Like local craft beers I seem to seek out College stations....our local one here at WCRD in Muncie shows how far college stations have falled over the years in finding new and progressive music.

Not being a Athenian I wondered if OHIO had a true "College" radio station in years past. I know there were really good concerts and shows that some were mainstream but many were fringe and new so.... was there a radio station that had King Biscuit Flower Hour or similar? or that addressed the college music scene more than Power 105 does presently?

I have to admit the thought came to me reading pp 24 of the Now I See the Light thread... strains of a new young artist on WXRT way back echoing in my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG1NrQYXjLU I seem to have words of apros po music haunt my thoughts...

I had a air shift on WOUB once during which I played bagpipe music. Boy did I catch hell for that! [I still like bagpipe music.]

I guess it must be an acquired taste. ;-)

That's a taste I never acquired, though I've been in Scotland twice.

Someone in the know will correct me with some of the details..

ACRN was the station in the late 70's. Very low power with transmitters covering each green. It was also carried by cable TV company then. We connected the cable hookup to the stereo turner to pick it up, as well as some of the Columbus stations.

Very interesting

I never thought of the problems with terrestrial signals. My wife being a Glouster girl and I have talked about the reception in "Redtown" but I never really put it together. Made sense that you had to be inventive. ACRN?

Talking about programming being at the discretion at the DJ is the very thing I always fing pulling me in to radio stations at colleges. Always have to coolest stuff. Northwestern and Northeastern Il, Loyola, NIU all had good stations. WVUD in Dayton, Hawaii, Athens GA, Boston....the stations had an edge and dug deep for music. I find it fascinating that the OHIO answer was to have stations in the dorms. That is novel and reflects the general tenor I have found particularly at OHIO...and with college students in general.

Thanks for the input.

WOuld love to hear more about the dorm setup and what kind of music Athens was listening to underground

Bornacatcan, your wife is from Glouster? Right on!

WGAM got started during my mid-60s years in Gam. Our studio? A converted 4th floor utility closet. Among our listeners? The girls next door in Tiffin.

When I was at GAM in the mid 70's,the "studio" was a converted storage room on the first floor.
As I recall, it was partitioned into 2 rooms.
One was the actual 2 turntable "studio".
The other room had the transmitter and other equipment.

Used to really enjoy taking requests from the girls in Tiffin.

"I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare" - Charlie McKenzie, So I Married an Axe Murderer

Pretty good responses. Suffice to say that in spite of an awesome student body and an active music scene....there was not a really strong student radio station that introduced progressive and college based rock. That is interesting in it's absence but even cooler in the the fact that students found a way to provide music....and interesting that ACRN and Oak are truly OHIO based terms.

It's been a while, but figured I would throw in some anecdotal experience on this one.

I was at OU from 2007-12, and ACRN was always the station where you could find alternative/indie/hard-to-come-by-on-Power 105 music. What truly kept it from being a big part of campus during my time was 1)it was only online, so it wasn't across the airwaves, and 2) the prevalence of iTunes/iPods/etc. really made it hard to get people to listen.

I was a DJ for about a year in 2009, and we always received new albums from bands that fit the genres above. Some of my favorite memories of OU include showing up to the station in Baker Center after class an hour or so before my shift. I would sift through the entire music library to pick out tracks I wanted to play during my hour. I also did a pop culture talk show with my buddy--which I'm positive about 2 people listened to at any given time. Really wish I stuck it out and did more with ACRN now that I'm reminiscing.

EDIT: I really don't think being online-only kept it from being more popular. If anything, it made it readily available to a wider audience. I just don't think there was an appetite to listen to the station for a lot of students.

More than slightly! ;-)