In the Fall of 2016, we were putting together the Tech Crew budget and put together a “wish list” of what we could do for WRUW’s 50th anniversary. Lucky for us, last year’s telethon was so successful that “we got our wish”. All of our budget items were approved. This means, it was a GREAT year for making our station sound much better. Some might even say, we sound “amazingly better”.

Thanks to the generosity of our listeners during past fundraisers, we were able to purchase over $20,000 worth of new equipment to improve WRUW’s sound during the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

As you do your telethon show this year, please thank our listeners for making all of these purchases possible. Their money was put to very good use and they can hear it!

PLEASE — DON’T TALK ABOUT ALL OF THESE AT ONCE. You’ll bore your listeners!!

Instead, think of this like a “menu” of things to talk about.

For example, on one of your talk-breaks, pick one (or two) item(s) on the list and talk about them. Expound further in your own words. Tell about what it means to you. Why you think it’s important. Then give the phone number and ask for money. Talk about premiums. Give the phone number. Go back to programming.

At another talk-break, pick something else on the list and talk about that. Expound upon it further in your own words. Talk about what it means to you. Then give the phone number and ask for a pledge of support.

We Upgraded and Improved our Air Signal

In the last couple of years, we have invested a significant amount of money in equipment to improve our air signal. Consisting of:

A new 20-watt preamplifier for our transmitter when our old one (take your pick: “went on the fritz” / “konked out on us” / “failed” / “started giving us trouble” / “died”).

New Exciter at Transmitter Site

2. New (take your pick: “state-of-the-art” / “top-of-the-line” / “top-shelf” / “awesome” / “high-end”) signal processing equipment to transform our everyday sound. We now sound better and louder on the dial. (Went live April 9th, 2017!)

Omnia 11 Signal Processor in Studio C

Omnia 9SG Signal Processor at Transmitter Site

Here’s a Comparison of “Before and After”

We Invested in Better Control of our Transmission Systems

We upgraded our transmitter controls for the 21st century. We now have better control and monitoring of our transmitter and our overall signal both at the station and remotely. We can monitor a lot of things over the internet now, and get alerted before problems become too serious.

New transmitter controls/readings

New monitoring equipment in Studio C

We invested in a new backup studio-to-transmitter link. This is the system that gets our audio from our studios to our transmitter and out over the air. We had a system that was outdated and in bad shape. We now have a more reliable backup STL with better sound quality than before.

Matched pair – one in Studio C, one at Transmitter Site

We Pushed Song and Artist Information Out to Radios

We are the only college station with a “song scroll” that you can see on car radios and other receivers. As long as we’re entering artist and song title as we play tracks, you can see the information on your radio.

A lot of commercial radio stations do this easily because they automate a lot of their song selections. We don’t use automation systems. We figured out how to do the song scroll with our diverse format of shows and music styles.

We Repaired our Most Important “Everyday” Equipment – CD Players

Our equipment runs 24/7/365 and we give it a serious workout. The CD players get the most use, and are usually the items most prone to breaking down with a “Table of Contents Error” or something more serious. We fixed multiple CD players over the last year. We sent out 5 decks for repair last year, and fixed some in-house, too.

We Upgraded our Website

We moved our website to a new hosting service with more memory and better processing.

Our website now runs faster and more reliably than it did at this time last year.

We Upgraded our Digital Music Library

In the last 7½ years, we have digitized almost one million songs. This is a combination of new music that has come into the station, plus our work digitizing our existing library. All of this digital music is easily accessible in our studios as we do our shows.

In the last year, we upgraded our music storage by investing in a new server and increased drive space. We are now at around 16 terabytes of usable space.

Furthermore, we invested in one (1) onsite and two (2) offsite backup systems so if our library ever goes down on-site we can bring it back quickly.

We Invested in our Live Music Productions

One of the things that makes WRUW unique from other stations is our commitment to local music and live performances. In the last year, we bought more equipment for our Live Music Crew to increase the flexibility and quality of live music broadcasts.

The crew upgraded part of their wiring from a snake of analog copper wires to a digital computer cable and input box, giving the crew eight more inputs and outputs over and above what they had already.

That gives the crew more flexibility in the types of groups they can present, and how well they can present them over the air. This is used every week on Live From Cleveland, and will be a big help in this year’s StudioArama.

The Live Crew also added two wireless mics and other equipment to improve their remote broadcasts. You can see these in action at the 2018 Hessler Street Fair in June. They will also be using these to broadcast the Cleveland Museum of Art Summer Solstice concert in June.

Remember! You can see and hear a lot of our past live productions on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/wruwfm

With Funds Raised during the 2018 Telethon we will …

… develop a new wish list! We already have some projects in mind to help the station sound even better in the future!