At 2:22 p.m. on Feb. 22, WSUM officially became a station of the radio waves. The station's General Manager Dave Black, Station Manager and UW-Madison junior Rod Swims and former journalism professor Jim Hoyt joined together to flip the switch, which officially launched the station.
The station's staff said everything is running well internally. However, there have been difficulties with reception to some parts of the campus area.
\Because we're downtown and there are a lot of buildings in the way, a lot of people probably didn't get the signal,"" Swims said. ""It just depends on where you are in relation to where the signal is. There are a couple of dead spots.""
Swims said that while some people on Langdon Street were calling in to the station's shows, others on Langdon Street were calling in because they were unable to get the signal.
""Part of the problem is that we're waiting on some permission from the [Federal Communications Commission] so we're going at 50 percent power,"" Swims said. ""As soon as we get the go ahead from the FCC, we'll go ahead and go at 100 percent power, so hopefully that'll improve some of the reception that people are getting.""
Swims said they are anticipating approval from the FCC within the next week or so. If that does not solve the problem, Swims said they do not know what will, but they will be consulting their engineers to see if there are any other options.
Aside from the signal difficulties, past and present members of the WSUM community were celebrating the milestone.
Steven Thompson, music editor for The Onion, graduated from UW-Madison in 1994 after serving as WSUM's music director. He spoke at the WSUM press conference on Friday and expressed his excitement that the dream of so many is finally a reality.
""I got to be part of a continuum,"" Thompson said. ""I didn't know how long it would take or if it would ever get done, but it did.""
The transition from Internet to radio broadcasting is integral to the station's growth, according to Black.
""It completes the loop,"" he said.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley agreed, expressing his hope that the station would help to bring the UW-Madison community closer together.
The station's first program on the air, ""Welcome to WSUM,"" was a retrospective look at WSUM's history, hosted by the sports director, UW-Madison senior Evan Cohen.
