WREK Atlanta, 91.1 FM

Good news! WREK's new transmitter has been delivered!

It arrived this morning (Tuesday, March 11) at 7 AM. With a good bit of help from the delivery crew, we had the 1.3 ton transmitter in place by 10 AM.

The new transmitter will be assembled and installed throughout the Spring Break week of March 16th - 22nd. The all-student WREK Engineering Team, with the wonderful volunteer assistance of Jim Evans, Electrical Engineering '73, will be spending its entire Spring Break toiling to bring WREK into the future with HD Radio and updated analog transmission capabilities that should last us until at least 2023. You're welcome.

Don't worry- we won't be off the air much during the installation! If everything goes well, expect just a few hours off the air at the beginning the week. That's all.

Afterwards, you'll be able to hear WREK Atlanta in crystal-clear HD Radio, also at 91.1 Mhz on your FM dial, as well as continuing to hear it in analog FM with even better sound quality. If you want to know more about the details of the technology, you can go on over to Wikipedia's wonderful, yet unforgiving, article on it. Other than better sound quality, the most remarkable feature of the HD Radio technology is its ability to let us provide a another continuous channel of programming (or two!) on our existing frequency. It's like another whole WREK, with even more quality, diverse programming for you to listen to!

As you can guess, the second channel will be the part of HD Radio that really makes a difference to you, our beloved listeners. We look forward excitedly to the day that we can sign on the air twice over, with two WREKs of programming for you! We plan to turn on our second channel at the beginning of the Fall semester, in mid-August 2008. Until then, we'll be preparing for it, creating new content, installing and testing another set of broadcast equipment in our already-cramped studios, and learning how to make the most out of this amazing new technology. Stay tuned!

For those who have heard about our FCC application for a coverage increase, our new transmitter gives us half of what we need to subsequently complete this upgrade to a higher power than our current 40,000 watts. Some time in the next several years, we will upgrade our antenna as well. Pending FCC approval, we could be a 60,000 - 100,000 watt station by 2010, perhaps sooner. The details will take another year to nail down, with hundreds more hours of research, regulatory work, and negotiations left for our student engineers and our alumni friends to do. We're working hard to bring more of you the healing energy of quality, diverse programming that is WREK.

UPDATE (Sept 2008): WREK has been issued a construction permit (pdf) for the 100,000 watt upgrade. We have not yet begun the hard work of constructing the new transmission system (antenna, tower upgrades, etc), yet- still several years to go!

If you'd like to come out and celebrate our upgrade and our 40th Anniversary with us, the 40th Anniversary Kick-Off and New Transmitter / HD Radio Turning-On Ceremony will be the Tuesday following Spring Break, March 25th, at 11:30 AM at Georgia Tech's own Student Center Commons. Afterwards, We'll have recreational activities outside for you to enjoy. We'll post more details as they become available. If you can't make it to our event, you can listen on WREK at 91.1fm, tune in on Georgia Tech Cable Channel 17, or watch the event later on our website.

Don't forget our 40th Anniversary Concert, taking place that Saturday at the Drunken Unicorn, either!

Thanks go out to Jim Evans, Electrical Engineering '73, of Technology Atlanta Corporation, for his invaluable volunteer assistance in preparing for this change. With his advice and weekend assistance, we've been working for months to make this happen, planning, negotiating, rewiring, and rewriting almost everything at our transmitter site in preparation for this installation. Thanks also go out to Chris Agocs and Robert Wright for their extensive help in these preparations, and in organizing the delivery and helping the delivery crew move the 1.3 ton transmitter into place. Finally, thanks go out to the Harris Corporation and our Georgia Tech Alumni friends there for offering us this transmitter at cost and for helping us to achieve this goal in every way they could.

LONG LIVE WREK!

Thomas Shanks

Chief Engineer