WMCR broadcasts on AM 1620 over traditional radio and over the internet.  The station is equipped with modern broadcasting technology and has a dedicated group of disc jockeys.  Additionally, the Communication Department’s new Radio Production course provides an understanding of radio history and the elements of radio broadcasting.

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WMCR History (1979-2007) Welcome to WMCR!
by Patrick Seibert (‘07) and Dr. Deborah Vance

The origins of the radio station at McDaniel College are somewhat hazy. The 1979 McDaniel College year book states that Lee Maxwell had a vision of establishing a radio station. This vision was shared by a group of students with the same goal. It seems as though the students achieved their goal, as a few years later the 1981 yearbook reads, “With its new studio across from Englar Dining Hall in Decker College Center, WMCR continued its upward movement within the WMC Community.” Terry W. (TJ) Grable recalls WWMC as being in the game room in the basement of Decker College Center, saying that the big window that looks into the game room was originally designed for the radio station. When the Communication Department began in 1982, Bob Sapora became the advisor to the radio station.

While the studio was under construction for the next two years in Decker College Center, across from Englar Dining Hall, the station aired pre-taped broadcasts under the call letters WWMC in 1985. On Feb 28, 1985, the Phoenix welcomes WWMC “back on the air.”

During January Term 1986, David Swezey developed a business plan with a $7,500 budget to build a functional radio studio. Swezey and his student-led team were granted $5,000 by the college which they spent on wood, bricks, nails and glue to build a studio, spending many days and nights running wires in the sewer systems to connect the carrier current system together. Swezey says it was a “100% student-run initiative,” and that he opened a bank account to save money to put toward buying lumber from the local 84 Lumber. The school gave Swezey and his team two rooms – a front office and a back room whose window looked out at a window well – tucked behind an old security office in the basement of Rouzer Hall. Without any formal permission, he, Pat Buchanon, Ted Grieves, and several other volunteers spent a good part of the winter and into Jan. Term building the production booth in the back room, lowering the ceiling, and building two studio booths with cinderblock – one for news and the other for music and production. They hung doors, glued sound-deadening carpet on the walls and installed a Plexiglas window between the two booths.

In order to hard-wire a carrier current between the buildings, Swezey and his team pulled cable to each building where they wanted to broadcast. The radio club couldn’t afford to pay for the work and the college had other priorities. “With a small malt-based beverage gift and some assurances that everyone knew what we were doing, I was able to ‘borrow’ a master key to all of the utility rooms from a very nice custodian/maintenance crew chief,” Swezey recalls. He and his team spent six weeks comprised of “hundreds of physical hours building the infrastructure,” opening up manhole covers around campus, entering utility rooms and fishing hundreds of yards of RG8 coaxial cable throughout the subterranean tunnels on campus. “McDaniel’s utility room was like a dungeon – totally dangerous with water on the floor and exposed wires everywhere,” Swezey says. They hung on each wall in the utility rooms a mounting board where they placed the broadcast transmitters, hooked up all the cables into the transmitters and patched the transmitters into the phone circuits, and with another friendly request for help, they connected each transmitter to a junction power box. They connected to Rouzer, Blanch Ward, Albert Norman Ward Halls and Daniel McClay, Whiteford and McDaniel Halls. As they built, the future radio station got a lot of publicity. Swezey changed the name from WWMC to WMCR. Swezey recalls,

What was always interesting was when we’d walk up to a manhole cover with our ladder and rolls of coaxial cable and pick ax. We’d open the manhole covers and other students would walk up to us and say, ‘What are you guys doing?’ and we’d reply, ‘Why, building a radio station of course!’ We recruited more future DJ’s and news broadcasters from those casual encounters and the word spread.

Matthew Levy joined WMCR in September 1987 and remained with it until his graduation in May of 2001. Levy recalls WMCR being located in the basement of Rouzer Hall between a men's and women's bathroom. During 1987, the College put cable television access in each dorm: Channel 3 was the channel where the radio station could be heard. At the start of Levy’s senior year and his term as General Manager, WMCR moved into Decker College Center, right across from Englar Dining Hall.

By Feb.14, 1987 when WMCR was only hooked up in Rouzer and Decker Halls, it broadcast its first song across campus. It took until the end of May to hook up all the buildings. The club carried on fund raising and received budgetary support from the college so they could upgrade equipment. They installed a mixing board and their first industrial CD player. By 1989, the station was broadcasting from 9:00 A.M. in the morning until 2:00 A.M., six days a week, and on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. Swezey notes that the Communication Department gave internship credits for working at the station. At his graduation Swezey was recognized by the college and presented a new award that was called the Communication Service Award, consisting of a handshake and an engraved Jefferson Cup.

Ted Graves was General Manager in 1989 with Levy as his assistant. In 1990, Levy became General Manager and David Miller became Station Manager. The yearbook that year says, “WMCR now broadcasted on 640 AM and has established themselves on the WMC airwaves.” In 1991 Lindley Dannaway got involved in WMCR. Miller was then the General Manager with Amy Pelsinski as Station Manager.

From 1993 until 1998, Todd Hutchison participated with the radio station, serving as General Manager from his junior to senior year. He started disc jockeying events for the sororities and fraternities for money and had the radio station active with its own events to help raise funds. WMCR had a secret off campus bank account that was started way before he was there. WMCR deposited money into that account over his term, which was used for additional equipment and for a year-end staff party. At this time Beth Roscoe, head of Residence Life was cited by Hutchison as being “our best advisor” as she raised funds for WMCR by selling flowers at graduation.

In1993 to 1994 Michael Rice was the General Manager and Dannaway became Station Manager. Grable says that during that year, no shows aired before noon Monday through Friday, none aired on Saturday, and Sunday had programming for four and a half hours. Grable joined WMCR in January 1994, a year whose radio staff had a General Manager, two Station Managers, two Music Directors, a Record Librarian, a Business Manager, a Promotions Manager and a Production Manager. Grable was elected Business Manager for the 1994-1995 academic year. Annilese Sullivan was General Manager in the fall 1994 but then graduated in December of the same year. Ridge Knauff was the General Manager from December 1994 until December 1995.

When he became General Manager for the year starting December 1995, Grable wrote a letter to the people at Communications Technologies Inc., highlighting the results of the signal search that was conducted for the AM frequency. Communications Technologies, Inc., had been contracted to find a suitable AM frequency on the Western Maryland College campus, and presented an engineering statement, proposing that the antenna be positioned “on top of the three-story building that is located east of the commons.” In section “E” of the engineering log it states that the transmitter for the antenna in the case of a college radio station is located in the building in which the studio resides. During this year Grable tracked down the five carrier current transmitters located in basements around the campus in 1987 that served as the station’s carrier current transmitters. He recalls that “they hadn’t been touched since installation and were almost nonfunctional. ” He said that the transmitters were set at 640 AM, but because of neglect they were not audible on campus. The only mode for listening to the radio at this time was Channel 3 on the television. The carrier current transmitters were just 20 watts each. The “Free Radiate” system required one of WMCR’s 20-Watt transmitters to refurbish it to clean and retune it and add an antenna on campus. The total cost for this project was $3,795.00. WMCR staff, lead by Grable did this during Spring Break of 1995, and Grable installed the antenna on top of Rouzer Hall with the help of the campus physical plant staff. He ran coaxial cabling to the transmitter in a storage closet on the top floor of Rouzer. From the transmitter to the studio he ran phone wire into the station. At this time Grable reports that the transmitting radius was six and a half miles. During the time that the transmitter was being refurbished it was recalibrated to 1620 AM. At the end of the 1995 school year WMCR staff approached the SGA about switching rooms with them over the summer, and WMCR moved to the location where it resides today in 2007, across from Englar Dining Hall in Decker College Center.

Grable said that when he graduated in December 1996, he left behind a folder called “The WMCR Book of Knowledge.” The folder included the Senior Seminar thesis and business management papers he wrote about the station as well as other documents, newspaper clippings and any technical and historical records he could find. “If this book still exists,” he says, “it has names of previous boards of directors, and the names of the original founders of WWMC.”

Grable as General Manager and Station Manager Kevin Lundell opened an account at Union National Bank to hold radio station funds. The account at Union National Bank was continued for the next three years (1997 -1999). Professor Emeritus Rick Dillman understands that the policy set forth by the college stated, “if the bank account funded WMCR, it had the right to review the station's policies. On the other hand, if it did not fund WMCR, the station could pretty much do what it wanted to.”

Hutchison purchased, two Peavey speakers in 1997 which are still being used. In 1998, $1,250 was transferred from the Special Programs account to WMCR as support for capital projects recommended by Hytek Services. In December 1999, Union National Bank sent a letter to Timothy Walker and Kelly Dunnavant (General Manager and Station Manager). The letter said: “This letter is to inform you that your checking account will be closed due to the overdraft status as of the above date, the overdraft balance is -$72.15. This must be corrected by December 21, 1999 or closing will be automatic and submitted for collection.” A week later, the bank closed the account because of an “excessive number of days remaining in overdraft status in accordance with bank policy.”

In January of 2000, the radio stations budget was allotted $6,503.08, but by the 2001 school year the radio station was in trouble. Communication Professor Tony Kirschner was advisor to the club. Half of the six-student executive staff of six students resigned, accusing the student slated to become General Manager of lying to fellow executive board member as well as using WMCR office equipment for personal needs and charging large sums of money to the station. As well as stealing from WMCR he also was accused of being sexist and allowing that to cloud his managerial decisions. During this time there were also mentions of a radio station suite in ANW. Patrick Seibert joined WMCR in the fall of 2003 during his freshman year, as a disc jockey at WMCR. During this time Anthony Leonard was President. The two had become good friends because we shared a common interest in music and entertainment. He was a mobile disc jockey on campus and took me under his wing. Within a year of being a disc jockey under his watchful eye I began to entertain my own parties. In the spring of 2003 I became the music director and the presidency was passed down to Chris DeRose. In the spring of 2004 I became General Manager. Leonard and DeRose tried their best to get WMCR recognized as an important media outlet on campus

Chris DeRose was President of WMCR in 2004 into the 2005 school year. DeRose said that when he took over,“There was not much going on with the radio. Most people on campus didn't even know about it.” Steve Peed, who was on the air as a student during 1996-1997 and later in 2004 served as advisor to WMCR when he became employed by McDaniel College in 2004. Brock Bolden (Station Manager) and DeRose made it their mission to incur some money from the school to replace the outdated equipment. With the funds, they painted the office, took down the stickers on the door so people could see in, installed a new desk, chair, and lamp, purchased a new sound board and ran all the wires into a smart box that the physical plant staff installed. DeRose and Brock helped coax Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s band to come play at the college. WMCR hosted and interviewed Mayor O’Malley. DeRose said “the biggest thing I think we did was to let people know we were there.”

In 2005, Seibert became General Manager was the disc jockey for the Freshman Orientation Pizza Party. It was a year big on shows, with six shows that ran on a regular schedule. Some of these shows were “Uncut” featuring Seibert and Leonard who played a blend of hip-hop music with 80’s tunes. Another show that year was “Se Germans” featuring two German exchange students who played a blend of Heavy Metal and Jazz as well as serving as a call-in show for German students on campus.

In May 2005, WMCR was allotted $3,200 for the year. By February 2006, the station had spent all but $2,587.76. In May 2006 Professor Deborah Vance of the Communication Department became the club’s advisor. She helped re-restablish the funds that the college had agreed to give to the station in 2004 when Tony Kirschner was advisor, to help it go online. In spring 2007 the station started broadcasting on the campus intranet in preparation for broadcasting over the internet. Although WMCR has taken steps towards becoming an internet radio station, it bemoaned the loss of its AM stream due to a degradation of transmitters needed to broadcast the AM signal.. A possible roadblock to internet broadcasting is that the Radio Internet Association of America has joined forces with Sound Exchange to propose a law ending internet radio as a free institution. Because of this, the radio station has determined to increase efforts to reestablish the AM frequency. Seibert spent several months trying to locate the antenna and transmitter: he found the antenna on top of Rouzer Hall and the transmitter on the wall in the 4th floor maintenance room of that building. Each floor has a maintenance room where the wires go from the transmitter all the way down into the radio station at the bottom of Decker College Center.

The broadcast space was remodeled in 2007 to allow for installing a post-production booth. It was outfitted with brand new equipment including two Macintosh computers and two broadcast boards. With a team of about 40 Disc jockeys who have worked long and hard to make WMCR a center for tasteful college programming. New president, Garret Eagan, will take over in fall 2008.

In his term as President, Seibert wanted everyone on campus to know who and what WMCR was. He also wanted WMCR to be the entertainment for all the parties on campus. As well as these goals he also set out to give the station more structure among its formatting, executive staff, and disc jockeys. He found that students did not take WMCR seriously at this time because the school did not recognize WMCR as an asset to the “college experience”. I preached to my staff that we needed to develop good relationship with the school administration. With the help of WMCR’s new advisor at this time, Dr. Vance of the Communication Department, we started contacting different areas in the administration asking for money and support as we were granted access to the campus intranet.

Seibert worked to develop a close-knit executive staff to help overcome the lack of recognition from the college community. In fall 2006, Seibert asked his Station Manager to step down from the executive staff, a decision agreed upon by the other 3 executive members because they felt that he was obstructing the station’s progress. The college is seeking to move WMCR to Lewis Recitation Hall, into a space vacated by the television station.

WMCR has along road ahead of it, but the people mentioned in this History have overcome so much so that WMCR’s future becomes brighter with every day.