Campus radio stations are traditions on college campuses. Every movie college campus has one, and even the high school kids on Saved by the Bell had their own station.
WXDU, Duke's campus radio station, is a community establishment at 88.7 and 103.5 FM. It offers a variety of music including urban, local, electronic, jazz, blues, world and comedy. It also has sports and the occasional comedy show.
"Our main purpose is to educate and entertain," said WXDU promotions director Kate Melcher, a staff assistant at the School of Law. "We introduce people to the kinds of music they couldn't hear on other stations. We play what sounds good-not just watered down and homogenous music they would hear on commercial stations."
There is one small problem, however. The station's frequency doesn't get picked up clearly on campus, so its diverse playlist is not always heard.
"You have to go out to the parking lot to listen to the station in your car," said senior Pam Wells, president of the Duke University Union, WXDU's parent organization.
Although WXDU broadcasts from the Bivins building on East Campus, the broadcast tower is in a part of the Duke Forest, between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill. The signal is much stronger west of Duke
But WXDU cannot change to a different frequency or move the broadcast tower.
"All non-for-profit radio stations are in the same area of the FM band, and with all the universities in the area, it is a crowded corner of the band," Coyle said. "The towers can't be too close together, and there are other universities to the east of us."
WXDU has addressed this problem by conducting a study to see if raising the tower would improve reception on campus, but the model showed that it would not, said station manager Jessica Stankeiwicz.
Since the tower is probably not going to be moved, there is a transmitter on top of the Clocktower which translates the signal to 103.5 so that people on West Campus can hear it, said Stankeiwicz, a senior.
Reception can also be improved with a simple dual-prong antenna for $3, Melcher said. WXDU has started a project to sell the antennae at events such as Springfest and Oktoberfest.
If you don't want an antenna, you can listen to WXDU on your computer. The station broadcasts live over the Internet at http://www.wxdu.duke.edu/, and listeners can even e-mail requests to the on-air disc jockey. The station has already gotten a few requests.
The listeners can also be viewers, with a web camera showing a different shot of the studio every 50 seconds. "Some people forget [the camera] is up there; others play around with it and others turn it away from them, showing only the CD they are playing," Stankeiwicz said.
WXDU's all-volunteer staff is made of 150 members who range in age from 15 to 50. About half of them are community members, and half are Duke students. "Of all our committees, WXDU is one of the best at connecting with the community," Wells said.
The interaction with the community is a source of pride for the station. "We have a wide range of people and a wide range of music," Stankiewicz said. "There were a ton of community members at our benefit.... I wish more students were involved too."
The students involved with the station are DJs and also help in running the station. Station managers hold DJ training each semester to train interested students.
"It's part of the college experience, you have to have a student radio station-it's one of those things," Wells said.
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