WWCU (95.3 FM) is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

owned by Western Carolina University and licensed to Dillsboro, North Carolina. The station plays a variety format. WWCU broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week from studios in the Old Student Union on the Western Carolina

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

as Jackson County's only local FM radio station. Student staff members work in an academic environment with studios similar to those found in commercial stations. The main transmitter is located on Brown Mountain. WWCU airs mostly AC and

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

from 2,000 to date. There are announcers on the station during regular

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. There are also specialty shows during the evening and weekend hours. WWCU is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalt ...

for th
Catamount Sports Network
and provides coverage of Catamount Football, Catamount Basketball (Men's & Women's).

History

In the autumn of 1947, carrier current station "WWOO" (550 AM) signed on from the Joyner Building (destroyed by fire in the early 1980s) as the first radio station in Jackson County. This station was carrier current, meaning that instead of broadcasting from a radio tower into the open air where anyone with a radio could pick it up, it transmitted, through

phone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or ot ...

s, to small transmitters located in the

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

s of each

dorm A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

and building using the

electrical wiring Electrical wiring is an electrical installation of cabling and associated devices such as switches, distribution boards, sockets, and light fittings in a structure. Wiring is subject to safety standards for design and installation. Allowable ...

of that building as an antenna, broadcasting 15 watts of power. (Listeners had to be in the building to pick it up). Later the studios were moved to the Stillwell building (which at that time was the

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

) overlooking Memorial Football Stadium, which was located where the Apodaca Science Building is today. In 1967, WWOO became "WCAT" and moved its studios to what is now office suite 123 in the Killian building. On June 13, 1975, WCU applied for a construction permit for a 10-watt noncommercial FM station at 91.7 MHz, which was granted on March 5, 1976. The station began broadcasting January 24, 1977, calling itself "U-92 FM", from facilities in an unused basement section of the Moore Building. It moved to 90.5 MHz and upgraded to Class A status, with 327 watts, in 1981; stereo programming debuted in 1984, and another power increase to 760 watts was made in 1998. In 2002, WWCU moved from its home of more than 25 years in the Moore Building to its newly built,

state-of-the-art The state of the art (sometimes cutting edge or leading edge) refers to the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time. However, in some contexts it can also refer to a level ...

studios in the restored Old

Student Union A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, ...

. Between 2003 and 2005, the station moved its primary transmitter to Cutoff Mountain, increasing coverage into Haywood County. After applying in 2010, WCU was awarded a construction permit to build a 95.3 FM station, licensed to Dillsboro and broadcasting from Brown Mountain, in 2015. This station began temporary service in 2018 as WWOO, a simulcaster of WWCU, using a temporary fiberglass mast; work began on the construction of a new permanent tower after that. The Brown Mountain site allows the station to cover areas previously shielded from the Cutoff Mountain signal by terrain. The 95.3 frequency had been used by a translator of

Blue Ridge Public Radio WCQS (88.1 FM) is the flagship National Public Radio member station for Asheville, North Carolina and Western North Carolina. The station is owned by Western North Carolina Public Radio, Inc. and broadcasts a mix of NPR and BBC World Service ...

's WCQS, which was forced to move to another frequency. The university sold the WWCU 90.5 facility to BPR in 2020 for $97,000, excluding the station's former booster; on February 1, 2021, the 90.5 facility went silent and took the call letters WZQS.

References

Droopy-Drew Parham (KISS 95.1, WSOC 103.7)

External links

* * {{Western Carolina University Western Carolina University Jackson County, North Carolina WCU Radio stations established in 1977 1977 establishments in North Carolina