| March 25th, 1968 |
WREK signs on the air with 10 watts of power.
Its broadcast area consisted of a ten mile radius, airing between
noon and midnight each day. According to one campus publication,
it was "born out of a suggestion made during a Tech leadership
conference in the fall of 1966." The three key ingredients
of WREK's early philosophy were student ownership and operation,
non-commercial educational service to the Tech community, and
improvement of communications on campus. For the first few years,
WREK was musically mainstream and Atlanta's only non-commercial station.
[See Richard Crouch's narrative on the birth of WREK.]
[See Larry Griggers' narrative on the early days of WREK.]
|
| August 1968 |
425 Watt power amplifier
built by Chief Engineer Geoff Mendenhall
and type accepted by FCC. Coupled with the antenna gain, this gave WREK
an effective power of 3400 Watts, enough to cover the Atlanta metro area.
This amplifier was eventually
given to WUVT at Virginia
Tech when they started their FM operation in 1976.
Goeff is now a V.P. at Harris Broadcasting
and recipient of the 1999 NAB award for excellence in broadcast
engineering.
|
| 1969 |
Used Gates Radio FM-7.5B amplifier is installed, raising amp power to
5000 Watts and effective power to 40,000 Watts. WREK could now be heard
through much of north Georgia and even into neighboring states under the
right conditions. By this time a music automation system had been cobbled
together.
|
| 1970 |
WREK goes stereo with acquisition (gift?) of a stereo exciter
for the transmission facility.
With the upgrade to stereo, WREK programming shifts from a
rock/acid rock mixture to "progressive". This was not a smooth
transition, bringing many complaints from a few faculty and some
Greeks. Circa 1971-1972 classical music is added to the play rotation
and much of the then popular "hard rock" is removed from the playlist.
The purpose was to let people hear what could not be otherwise heard
in Atlanta.
|
| 1971 |
WREK starts regular live broadcasts of local concert performances.
One of the first is the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage.
|
| 1971 |
Engineers set up WREK's first automation system, which played a
continuous random sequence of songs. At some point it aquires the name
"George P."
|
| August 14th, 1971 |
The stereo signal of WREK joins with the stereo signal of WGKA
(92.9 FM at the time) to produce three hours of quadrophonic sound!
[See Miles O'Neal's comments about what life
was like at WREK in the early 70's.]
[See John Conway's comments about early Sports
programming at WREK in the mid 70's.]
|
| 1978 |
With the transmission equipment (and studios) in need of improvement,
operations are moved to the current studios on Eighth Street.
This was the old home of WGST (Georgia School of Technology),
which broadcast as a Tech affiliated station from the 1920's through
the 1950's, until the license was sold to the current commercial WGST
(640 AM) in 1974. Ray Charles recorded here!
At this time WREK's current broadcast tower (300 feet tall) is built
on the West edge of campus.
|
| mid September 1984 |
"Personality Crisis" music show debuts (still going).
|
| early October 1984 |
"Destroy All Music" music show debuts (still going).
|
| 1985 |
First of four "Destroy All Music" festivals occurs.
|
| 1986 |
WREK staffers release "Nine/Underground", a local experimental
music compilation.
|
| 1986 |
Dr. Joseph Pettit, president of Tech, passes away. Dr. Pettit was
a strong supporter of WREK and its independent programming philosophy.
He was the real force behind the trust fund that was created from the
proceeds of the sale of the original WGST license. Interest from the
trust fund was used to pay for the new tower and antenna, renovation
of the studios, and the microwave link to the tower.
|
| 1987 |
Up to now, WREK's actual on-air programming is produced by
George P., the automation system, nearly all hours of the day,
with all styles of music randomly mixed together. Actual
live DJ's, or "ops", could generally be heard during the evening
specialty shows.
|
| 1987 |
WREK's transmitting hardware is upgraded to professional caliber
with a big investment on the part of the student government. In making
this upgrade, the students of Georgia Tech decided that a change to a
more "listenable" format was in order, and WREK switched to the current
block format, playing specific styles of music (jazz, classical, rock, etc.)
during daily time blocks, with live DJ's at all times.
Automation (George P.) can still be heard spinning away through the wee
hours every night, and remains a favorite "op" of many of WREK's diehard fans.
[See Mark Mitchell's comments about how the
current generation of oldies tapes came about.]
|
| 1991 |
Dean Edwin P. Kohler retires. As the chairman of the Radio
Communications Board from its inception, Dean Ed was a strong
advocate of student control over the station. Although he didn't
always dig WREK's sound, Dean Ed was an invaluable supporter and advisor
for WREK.
|
| April 1993 |
WREK's first web site is brought online by student Lisa Moore,
a full two years before the word "Internet" means anything
to anyone outside academia and the technical trades.
|
| November 7th, 1994 |
WREK-Net starts transmitting live signal
on Internet using staff-developed custom software that eventually
becomes Cyber Radio 1. This is before RealAudio even exists, and as
such marks the
first ever Internet broadcast
by a radio station anywhere.
|
| 1997 |
Live at WREK CD
is released to critical acclaim and brisk sales.
|
| 1999 |
The last printed WREKology is published, a 50+ page tome including
multiple articles, interviews, programming info, and an exhaustive
addlist covering two years of programming.
|
| June 2001 |
WREK's automation system (aka George P.) is reborn as a fully digital,
web integrated system that allows the public to interact with our databases
as never before. In fact, we think we might now be
the most technically advanced non-comm station
on the planet!
|
| January 2002 |
WREKology is reborn as a weekly email newsletter.
|
| July 27th, 2004 |
WREK signs on the air from its brand new studio in the Student Center Commons
in the center of campus.
|
| May 28th, 2005 |
After numerous equipment upgrades, WREK begins sending its audio to the FM
transmitter digitally over a fiber-optic cable. Our fully digital soundchain
provides a significant reduction in the noise floor and improved audio
clarity.
|
As a station owned and operated solely by the students of Georgia Tech,
and with broadcasting power that ranks us as having the seventh largest
potential audience nationwide, WREK is in the unique position
of providing the Georgia Tech student body (and the entire Atlanta
metropolitan area) with seriously challenging programming, and WREK
staffers are fiercely dedicated to that goal.
