WREK (FM)
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WREK FM ("Wreck", from the Rambling Wreck) is Georgia Tech's radio station, located at 91.1MHz FM in Atlanta. Starting as a 10-watt class D, it is now 40kW ERP, and 6.6 kW TPO, making it among the ten highest-power college radio stations in the United States. The antenna is a omnidirectional 12-bay Jampro model JSCP, and 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 via wireless STL.
WREK's studios were located in the annex to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum from 1978 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.
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 Currents of Resistance, produced by the Atlanta Indymedia Center; Tech Talk, a talk show hosted by and focusing on concerns of Georgia Tech students; The Cusp, an improvisational comedy show chronicling the adventures of Stimpy the Pirate; Destroy All Music, clatter-improv with pink noise freakouts; and Live@WREK, a live music show.
WREK also broadcasts play-by-play coverage of Georgia Tech intercollegiate athletics, including baseball, women's basketball, volleyball, and softball. 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".
Technical accomplishments
WREK began streaming its uncompressed (8-bit PCM) broadcast over the Internet on November 7 of 1994, making it one of the first Internet radio stations [1] (http://www.wrek.org/wreknet-first.html). The station now streams in MP3 format and features a week-long archive.
External links
- WREK homepage (http://www.wrek.org)
- WREK at the Radio Locator (http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=wrek&x=0&y=0&is_unl=Y&is_lic=Y&is_cp=Y&sr=Y&s=C&sid=)
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