By Shirley Jiang
East Hampton High School
On June 27, 1977, at 5:30 p.m., Stony Brook University’s WUSB radio station signed for the first time, playing “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hoople.
Over 48 years, the station at 90.1 FM has served the Stony Brook area with ever-changing technology while keeping the interest of the people in mind.
The station can be heard in Long Island, Southern Connecticut, Brooklyn, Queens, and Westchester County with more than 6,000 listeners each day.
This year, for the 48th anniversary, the founding general manager and faculty advisor, Professor Norman Prusslin, was interviewed on the history of the station and the live concerts it used to produce on campus.
Playing “All the Young Dudes” became a yearly tradition along with playing music from the 70s to invoke nostalgia.
Along with music from the 70s, the WUSB airs music ranging from jazz, punk rock, pop, world music, local music, international music and exclusive music. The station also covers music history and includes public service announcements.
Isobel Breheny-Schafer, the assistant director of student media and general manager of WUSB, said the public service announcements increases the exposure of local non-profits to a larger audience and “makes all of us feel very good.” Featured nonprofits include libraries, children’s hospitals, veterans’ homes and events such as blood drives.
Students hold positions including program director, music director, student sports director, DJ and alumni sports director. The station also depends greatly on volunteers. There are more than 2,000 of them-students, faculty and community members who are required to complete volunteer hours. The volunteers can be compensated with college credits or work as paid interns.
“Music wouldn’t be the way it is today without the radio,” said Andrew Sivillo, also known as DJ Drew, a SUNY Oneonta graduate interning at WUSB. Radio allows the community to stay informed and is a source of social discourse, Sivillo said. DJ Drew enjoys hosting weekly shows and loves psychedelic rock, jazz fusion and power pop.
Breheny-Schafer has witnessed changes in the radio industry along with improvements in technology. The station started with an analog phone system, analog sound board for broadcasting, printed news reports, analog phone lines for transmission and often received music on vinyl and CDs.
Today, the WUSB relies on ethernet lines for transmission, digitized boards and soundboards and receives music from online sources such as Spotify and music companies.
With the development of phones, the station is now portable.
“I listen to the radio in the car,” Breheny-Schafer said. “I listen to it on the computer in the office. The radio is always on in my house. I have different radios in different rooms so I almost always have the radio on.”