WHCU

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WHCU
Broadcast area	Ithaca, NY
Branding	"News-Talk 870"
Slogan	"News-Talk 870"
First air date	1912
Frequency	870 (kHz)
Format	news-talk
ERP	5,000 watts (day), 1,000 watts (night)
Class	B
Callsign meaning	W Home of Cornell University
Owner	Saga Communications
Website	whcu870.com

WHCU is an AM radio station begun in 1912 as an experiment in the School of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University. The original call letters were 8YC, later changed to 8XU. The Federal Communications Commission issued a broadcast license on May 27, 1922, with the call letters WEAI. The new station took to the air on January 23, 1923. The station was used as a vehicle for promoting the university's extension service and all of its programming was educational in nature.

In 1932, Cornell joined with the Elmira Star-Gazette to start radio station WESG in Elmira, which shared programming with WEAI. The Star-Gazette managed the station during this period, however, the FCC ordered Cornell in 1940 to run the station itself or surrender the license. Within 12 hours of the deadline, the station signed on with borrowed staff and equipment.

The stations went their separate ways. WESG became WENY and WEAI became WHCU, which stands for Home of Cornell University.

WHCU's first complete studios and offices were completed in 1941. New studios were built in downtown Ithaca in 1957.

Cornell University sold WHCU and sister station WYXL to Eagle Communications in 1985. Six years later, the stations moved into a new complex on Hanshaw Road, northeast of Ithaca in the town of Lansing.

The station has carried news-talk programming at least since the mid 1980s. It also has carried Cornell University sports, CBS Radio news, National Football League games and New York Mets baseball.

Saga Communications bought the stations in the mid 2000s.

[edit] Alumni

[edit] External links

Query the FCC's AM station database for WHCU