Remembering My Time on Radio

Remembering My Time on Radio

Before I was filling wedding dance floors every weekend, I was filling the airwaves at Bowling Green State University — back when queuing vinyl, splicing reel-to-reel, and shouting “WFAL!” into a mic felt like the height of cool. Campus radio may have changed its name, but the memories (and the chaos) are still loud and clear. 

October 12, 2024

I was reading an article this afternoon about Falcon Radio at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. It seems the station has dropped its call letters. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I remember my time on Falcon Radio. At every commercial break, the same station identification: "You're listening to Rock Solid, WFAL." Yes folks, before I became a mobile DJ, I was a radio DJ. 

There have been two radio stations on the BGSU campus since the late 1960s but the lines between the two have often been blurred. The better known (and better funded) station has always been WBGU. Its home on the radio dial remains 88.1 FM. And while the WBGU call letters have endured in Northwest Ohio (and online), the WFAL call letters have left the 419 permanently. 

The January 18, 1948 edition of the Bee Gee News (yes, that’s what the school newspaper was called then) announced – Campus ‘Radio Station’ Opens Tonight. The birth of WBGU, right? Well, sort of. When the station first went on air, it was known as WRS and Professor Sidney Stone of the speech department let the campus know they could access programming “at 600 kilocycles from 5 to 7 p.m.” Apparently, it ran through wiring in university buildings. I was today years old when I learned these details about the station's birth.  Just a few years later, the March 30, 1951 edition of the school newspaper announced that as soon as a new station was constructed, WBGU would launch on 88.1 FM, which happened just a year later. 

The 1960s were a time of change, and campus radio was no different. In the latter part of the decade, undergraduate students at WBGU were replaced by three paid employees. This, in turn, led to the birth of WFAL. While WBGU-FM moved toward “an era of professionalism that raised the prominence of the station in the community” (according to the WBGU training manual), WFAL had its origins as a pirate radio station in a BGSU dorm room. The student DJs who were ousted by the university's decision to hire professionals were determined to keep the vinyl spinning one way or another. Remarkably, instead of shutting down the pirate station, the university soon decided to make the illegal broadcast a school-sponsored station and "WFAL" officially began broadcasting in 1970. 

By the mid-1970s, both stations were again student-run, and when classes ended in spring 1985, WBGU signed off for the last time from South Hall.  Trivia – “See Me, Feel Me” by The Who was the last record played. 

As for WFAL, an article in the 1987 Key yearbook attributes WFAL programming director Dale Stead as saying the station was in its 16th year and the largest AOR (album-oriented rock) station in the Midwest. This is how I remember WFAL. For those who do not know, AOR format allowed for obscure tracks to be played by DJ discretion. These "deep tracks" (as they were sometimes called) were often preferred to those songs released commercially as singles. WBGU was an alternative station; WFAL was strictly classic rock...until it wasn't. 

During my time on the station–from 1991 - 1995–the production manager decided we needed to fall in line. Soon, we had modern rock tracks on hourly rotation. We were still free to play the songs we wanted to hear, but our choices would wait until after we had played selected tracks to satisfy the promotional contracts that kept money coming in. It was often a jarring and fragmented mix. Boston did not play nice with Big Audio Dynamite; Aerosmith did not pair well with Juliana Hatfield. It was during this time that I began to understand the importance of segues between songs. Beats per minute and key signature were important to create an organic flow of music from one song to the next. But stylistically, genre was even more important. 

When I worked as a DJ at WFAL, we still queued vinyl, recorded promotions on reel-to-reel, and played commercials and PSAs using a cart system. A few short years after I graduated, big changes followed. Both stations moved to the new, state-of-the-art Kuhlin Center on campus, and when this happened,  both radio stations took on new identities. 

Today, WBGU-FM is “Northwest Ohio’s Community Radio Station,” and it is staffed by community volunteers and students alike.  Anchored by The Morning Show presented by the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, WBGU is focused on the local Wood County community and offers a diverse range of programming including local news, sports, and niche music shows.  Falcon Radio (formally WFAL) is now exclusively streaming online on the BG Falcon Media website. It is now a sandbox of sorts, exclusively for students.  On Falcon Radio students can feel free to experiment with any type of programming they wish while they learn how to operate the state-of-the-art studio equipment.  Students from any discipline are encouraged to participate and can often get trained and scheduled for their own show in twenty minutes or less.  Often the student produced content takes shape as podcasts, but Falcon Radio also has monthly music programming events sponsored by local businesses in addition to daily “legacy programs” that run at specific times each day.

Concerning the loss of the station's call letters, I am shocked to learn that Bowling Green State University never had the right to use WFAL. As School of Media and Communication Chief Broadcast Engineer & Manager of Technology Services Jim Barnes points out, call letters are actually licensed through the FCC. And BGSU never had that license. The WFAL call letters have been owned by stations in Mashpee, Mass., Falmouth, Va., and Frostproof, Fla. An FM station in Milner, Ga. currently uses WFAL. So to protect themselves, when the time came to move into the shiny new Kuhlin Center digs, WFAL disappeared from the BG landscape and Falcon Radio was born.

I treasure my memories of WFAL–both on and off the air. You see, the station would often send its DJs to remote locations to play music before a live audience. These excursions were my introduction to mobile DJing. It is doubtful I would do what I do today had it not been for these remote gigs. I was bitten by the bug, and I have been spinning tracks for a dance floor ever since. (Speaking of dance floors, I also worked as a club DJ for a short time, though that is another story for another day.) 

I don't think I would enjoy work as a radio DJ today. Radio has become too corporate, and most stations pre-record their DJs. What's more, those DJs no longer have authority to choose what songs get played. The playlists are now decided by algorithms. As a mobile DJ, I always play my couples' song requests, but I am still free to "read the room." I still have the ability to choose what songs to play. And for as long as that is allowed, I will happily work every Saturday night. There really is nothing better than bringing crowds of strangers to the dance floor and uniting them as a community of celebrants. 

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