Sheer Excitement

Progress will come in still another vein. This concerns the sheer excitement and drama of broadcasting to such a large potential audience. Andrew feels this should help keep standards and morale high among the station's staff.

All of this progress--and, indeed, all of WHRB's hopes--are still contingent on FCC approval to construct and to operate an FM station. This approval should come in January or February. Andrew has already convinced the trustees and staff members of the station that the projected move is a good one, and he feels sure he can do the same with the FCC.

Already the station has made tentative contracts with various suppliers for the necessary transmitting equipment, when and if approval comes. The FCC apparently frowns upon any purchase of equipment before a license has been granted. It regards this as undue pressure, although it does not object to tentative contractual agreements. Yet within six months after the construction license has been granted, the FCC insists that the station be ready for operation. Otherwise it will not grant an operating license, normally a routine procedure.

WHRB's construction should take no longer than four to six weeks, Andrew says. The station would then be fully prepared to start its FM operations, since the actual technical knowledge required for transmission would be practically identical with that required now for the radio frequency line transmission.

Andrew has even had the station's charter changed already. When incorporated in 1952, the purposes of WHRB were stated this way: "To establish and maintain a radio communication system throughout Harvard University in the Common-wealth of Massachusetts, for the two-fold purpose of: 1) educating its members in the technical and commercial problems inherent in radio broadcasting and of 2) broadcasting, and otherwise providing for, the dissemination of music and educational information for students at said University."

The revised charter, just ratified last month, clearly indicates where WHRB is heading. It now starts off this way: "The principle purposes of the Corporation shall be to own and to operate facilities in the city of Cambridge in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in order to broadcast by radio, TV, or by any other mode of communication, which now or in the future may exist, musical, cultural, educational, informational, and other programs and materials for the entertainment and profit of the public, and for the education and training of its staff."

By itself, the revised statement would seem to indicate that WHRB has completely separated itself from Harvard. At present, however, all the members of the station are keenly aware that they are a Harvard station, and they want to keep it that way. Whether this same feeling will exist after lengthy exposure to the Greater Boston FM listeners remains to be seen. It should be an interesting wait