WREK

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WREK-FM

City of license	Atlanta, Georgia
Broadcast area	Atlanta metropolitan area
Branding	WREK Atlanta
Frequency	91.1 MHz
Format	College radio
ERP	40,000 watts
Callsign meaning	WREcK
Owner	Georgia Tech
Website	WREK.org

WREK Atlanta ("Wreck", from the Rambling Wreck) is Georgia Tech's radio station, located at 91.1 MHz FM in Atlanta, and on channel 17 on the Georgia Tech cable TV network, GTCN. Starting as a 10-watt class D, it now broadcasts a 40,000 W ERP signal throughout metropolitan Atlanta, making it among the ten highest-power college radio stations in the United States. The transmitter outputs a 6,600 W TPO signal into a high-gain 12-bay Jampro model JSCP omnidirectional antenna, resulting in a total of 40,000 watts of radiated power. The antenna is located on a 300-foot (90-meter) self-supporting Jampro tower adjacent to the Undergraduate Living Center and Woodruff Hall on Georgia Tech's west campus, connected to the studio via a wireless, 950.0 MHz studio-transmitter link, WQAQ311, and a digital, fiber-optic link.

1 History
2 Programming
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

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WREK first signed on the air on March 25, 1968, broadcasting at 10 Watts from a donated tower atop the Van Leer Electrical Engineering building on Georgia Tech's campus. The studio was located in the top floor of that building and consisted of donated equipment from WSM-FM Nashville.^[1] Chief Engineer and then-student Geoff Mendenhall designed and built a 425W power amplifier which, once type certified by the FCC in August 1968, brought WREK to 3,400W ERP. Mendenhall later designed transmitters at Harris Corporation.^[2]

In 1978 WREK's tower and studio were relocated. A new, 300 foot tower was built on the western edge of the Georgia Tech campus, and the studio moved to the annex of the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, where it would remain until 2004. That facility was home to WGST (from Georgia School of Technology, GT's earlier name) AM radio from 1956 until 1975, when that station's license was sold against the school's will as "surplus property" by the Georgia Board of Regents. Visitors to WREK's Coliseum studios were often startled by its walls, which were covered by thick layers of posters, set lists, and other music memorabilia, as well as the giant electromechanical broadcast automation machines and other large racks of monitoring and control equipment. WREK's studios relocated to the Student Center Commons (formerly the Georgia Tech Bookstore building) in August 2004.^[2]

WREK began streaming its compressed (8-bit uLaw) broadcast over the Internet on November 7 of 1994, making it one of the first Internet radio stations.^[3] The station now streams in MP3 format and features a week-long archive.

[edit] Programming

WREK slogans include "music you don't hear on the radio" and "quality diverse radio."

Programming is student-run and extremely diverse, including everything from heavy metal to world, hip-hop to blues, classical and jazz to industrial and noise, and similarly diverse community programming (Church of the Subgenius). Locally produced programming includes Tech Talk, a talk show hosted by and focusing on concerns of Georgia Tech students; the Ramblin' Wreck Report, a Georgia Tech sports talk show hosted by students; Destroy All Music, clatter-improv with pink noise freakouts; The Mobius[1], an experimental electronic show featuring music and in-studio performances of new and established artists that run the electronic gamut; The Electric Boogaloo, a funksperience; Live@WREK, a live music show; and Continental Drift, Atlanta's longest running international music radio program.

WREK also broadcasts play-by-play coverage of Georgia Tech intercollegiate athletics, including baseball, women's basketball, and volleyball. In fall 2004 it agreed to simulcast selected Georgia Tech football and men's basketball games to augment WQXI's diminished AM nighttime coverage in metro Atlanta.

In December 2002, WREK broadcast the entire 50-disc Merzbox by the Japanese experimental music artist Merzbow. An article in Creative Loafing described the Merzbow Marathon as "what may be the most obscure and counterintuitive move in the history of radio."

Continuing their tradition of seemingly suicidal radio broadcasts, WREK chose to air the long-running heavy metal show Wrekage for the entire 24 hour broadcast day on June 6, 2006 (6/6/6).^[4] Heavy metal was played in chronological order from midnight to midnight. As an extra nod to the mystic number 666 (number), Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast was aired at 6:06 A.m. and PM.

[edit] References

^ General Manager Richard Crouch's narrative on the birth of WREK. Retrieved on April 7, 2007.
^ ^a ^b WREK History. Retrieved on April 7, 2007.
^ wrek-net: we got here first. Retrieved on April 7, 2007.
^ WREKage. Retrieved on April 7, 2007.

[edit] External links

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