Roosevelt University's WRBC radio is back on the air

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: Roosevelt University's WRBC radio is back on the air : Now streaming online, the station, which had not operated for a few years, returns with eclectic format thanks to determined student : By Angie Leventis Lourgos | Special to the Tribune : February 26, 2009 : -------------------------------------- : When Ashley Mouldon would walk from her Roosevelt University dorm room to the cafeteria, a locked door labeled WRBC STUDIO piqued her curiosity. : What did the abandoned radio booth contain and why did the music stop? : Now Mouldon has revived the campus station—whose call letters had been dormant since 2003. : WRBC: The Blaze streams music digitally online, and student disc jockeys began airing their own live shows on Monday. Programming is expected to include news, sports and a diverse music mix. : "I vowed to have this done by the time I graduate," said Mouldon, the new station manager, who expects to finish her undergraduate journalism studies in May. : The university station was officially born in 1946, though in its earliest years it only broadcast via a public address system. The first campus radio transmission aired in 1973, said the university's audiovisual technician, Wheeler Cole, a former student who began working as a DJ that same year. The low-watt station couldn't be heard much farther than campus. But Cole said students could listen on transistor radios. : Cole maintained ties with the campus station for more than three decades. The station shut down a little more than five years ago because of lack of funding, Cole said. : When Mouldon first entered the old studio, which was housed in the Herman Crown Center on South Wabash Avenue, it seemed as though her predecessors had simply left work one day and never returned. : "It was like a little ghost town," she said. : To guide WRBC's resurrection, she recruited some of her communications professors, including faculty adviser Jim Benes, who is also the morning news editor at WBBM-AM 780. : Benes and Mouldon considered reviving the campus station's AM frequency, but its range was so limited that they decided to stream online instead; this also was cheaper and easier than working analog equipment. : Students aren't broadcasting out of the old WRBC studio that Mouldon used to pass by and ponder, because that dormitory is slated for demolition. The new station is on the fifth floor of the Gage Building, 18 S. Michigan Ave. : To listen to WRBC: The Blaze, visit www.roosevelt.edu/wrbc

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