WRPI 50th Anniversary

WRPI 91.5 Troy NY celebrated 50 years of broadcasting at the beginning of November.

WRPI was a favorite of mine growing up in Waterford, NY. I listened to Jerry Cohen playing jazz, Ed Dague doing talk and Chuck Phelan, Den Jackson and Dev Gualtieri on "Campus Session" every Saturday, where WRPI played Top 40 music.

I airchecked a four hour retrospective of the station that was broadcast. You can download it as an mp3 file by RIGHT CLICKING HERE. The file is about 120 mb, encoded at 64 kbps/22khz.

RPI Grad Den Jackson also wrote me about the anniversary:

"What a blast! All in celebration of the 50 anniversary of when WRPI started at 91.5 FM with 710 Watts, on November 1, 1957 with a GE Serrasoid modulated 1 kW beast of a transnmitter donated by the defunct WROW-FM. Today, at 10 kW from the old Channel 41 tower in Menands, it's one of the most powerful and interestingly programmed 100% student operated college stations in the country. People returned from RPI Classes of 1962 through 2004. All really great people! The current student staff and alumni office staff provided great hospitality and made us all feel very welcome! We all recorded promos and talked about old times and new. Richie Glassberg, the WRPI PBP announcer from when the RPI Engineers became national college hockey champs in 1984 returned to call the game against Yake Fri note (1-1 tie in overtime.)

"We all recorded promos and talked about old times and new. The long time line represented made us all realize that station has metamorphosized over and over again through the years. When my Class of '68 group arrived in Fall 1964, "rock and roll" was taboo. The year after I graduated (1968), WRPI station became totally free-form progressive. It went through an era where community volunteers did most of the shows, to where it became a voice for underrepresented minority student groups, and back to all student run with some venerable community show-hosts remaining."

Your buddy Rick did some time at WRPI - as a board op for my cousin John in 1970. So - my 3rd Class License hung at the 15th Street Lounge for a short time.

Congratulations to WRPI on their 50th!