Goddard College Community Radio (WGDR and WGDH)
Goddard is home to Goddard College Community Radio, a community-based, non-commercial, listener-supported educational radio station with nearly 70 volunteer programmers who live and work in central and northern Vermont and who range in age from 12 to 78 years. WGDR, 91.1 FM, is licensed to Plainfield, Vermont. Its sister station, WGDH, 91.7 FM, is licensed to Hardwick, Vermont.
The station began as a student-driven project in the late 1960s—a carrier-current AM station that was intended to be heard only on campus under the call letters WGOD, or "The Voice of Goddard." By 1972, the station had ceased operation and in January 1973 a course at Goddard was formed under the direction of Kirk Gardner to establish an FM station that would broadcast to the surrounding communities in Vermont. Students applied to the Federal Communications Commission for an FM transmitting station license, and obtained the call letters WGDR, which had been previously used by a marine station. Students also participated in reconstruction of the space allotted in the Eliot Pratt Center Library building for the station's studios. They obtained some new studio equipment, arranged for a news service, contacted record publishers for NFS copies of the latest released music, and organized a broadcasting schedule. A 10 Watt FM transmitter was installed with a broadcast antenna mounted on a mast on the roof of the building, directly above the studios. The first 'board' in the 'air studio' consisted of a Shure M67 mixer and a Broadcast Production Master, along with some custom built circuits. The station was broadcasting by late Spring 1973. The station remained at the 10 Watt level for at least a few years during which time, its coverage area allowed it to reach some towns in the surrounding area but not others because of the hilly terrain. Years later, the station's radiating power was upgraded with a bigger transmitter and more efficient antenna.
In 2009, WGDR received a My Source Community Impact Award for Engagement for the work it has done in the Central Vermont community. The following year, Kris Gruen was appointed station director.
In March 2011, the station expanded to a second, more-powerful (1,100-watt) trransmitter with the launch of WGDH at 91.7 FM, which simulcasts with WGDR and can be heard throughout Lamoille County in north-central Vermont and in parts of Washington, Franklin, Orange, Caledonia, Essex and Orleans counties. Today, operating under the umbrella name Goddard College Community Radio, it is the largest non-commercial community radio station in Vermont and is the only non-commercial station in the state other than the statewide Vermont Public Radio network that receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Read more about this topic: Goddard College
Famous quotes containing the words goddard, college, community and/or radio:
“There is no mystery in a looking glass until someone looks into it. Then, though it remains the same glass, it presents a different face to each man who holds it in front of him. The same is true of a work of art. It has no proper existence as art until someone is reflected in it—and no two will ever be reflected in the same way. However much we all see in common in such a work, at the center we behold a fragment of our own soul, and the greater the art the greater the fragment.”
—Harold C. Goddard (1878–1950)
“The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford is Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse; and they draw the greatest amount of benefit from both. The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do not work but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.”
—Michael Lewis (late 20th century)
“Now they can do the radio in so many languages that nobody any longer dreams of a single language, and there should not any longer be dreams of conquest because the globe is all one, anybody can hear everything and everybody can hear the same thing, so what is the use of conquering.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)