By Mitchell Hang

The University of Maryland’s student-run radio station is undergoing a major operational change to increase its range of broadcasting, which will make many people on and off campus ask, “What’s the frequency?”

WMUC is preparing to change its frequency after decades of transmitting on 88.1 FM. Listeners will still be able to listen to news reports, Third Rail live performances and Weezer Wednesdays — just on a different frequency. The frequency change means listeners outside of College Park will be able to tune into the station as well.

WMUC officially first appeared on AM airwaves in 1948, but the university had been broadcasting within campus for several years prior, beginning with the Old Line Network broadcasts in 1942. The station transmitted on AM radio for several decades until it received its FM license in 1979, allowing it to broadcast music at a higher quality.

The station adopted the free-form format in 1982, which allowed DJs to play whatever music they wanted and the opportunity to promote underrepresented local artists. After it shut down its AM signal in 1999, WMUC replaced it with WMUC Digital broadcast, which serves as another broadcast channel for WMUC and can be streamed on the station’s website.

The station, which proudly proclaims “college radio is good radio,” has been home to radio shows that play many genres of music throughout its time on the air. 

Its student DJs would declare the station ID at the top of the hour. 

“You’re listening to WMUC 88.1 FM, College Park.” 

Now, that’s a relic of the past. DJs have stopped announcing the frequency because of the change.

Madeline Redding, the station’s general manager and a senior theatre major, said the frequency change is quite complicated since there hasn’t been much development within the past few years and the station only submitted its application to the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, which has yet to be approved.

Plans to change the frequency started much earlier. In 2002, Baltimore radio station WYPR announced that they would be changing their frequency to 88.1 megahertz, reducing WMUC-FM’s range. Yet some students didn’t want to change the frequency, Redding said.

“Students did not want to change WMUC from 88.1 because we have been on this frequency for decades,” she said. The opposition continued even as WYPR officially switched to 88.1 FM in 2008.

Redding said this frequency change isn’t new — it has been going on for several years out of the public eye, with only some staff members and DJs being aware. 

“It is not something we are promoting at the moment because we don’t have a timeline on when we can expect the change to happen,” she said. “We will promote it heavily once we know when to expect it.”

This frequency change will allow WMUC-FM to be heard from further outside of the campus, including part of the Washington area. 

“It is rare to be a free-form, student-run radio station, and this change is for the DJs and community members to have a stronger voice in the DMV area and give a wider reach for student music,” she said.

WMUC Program Director Kira Peck, a senior theatre and psychology major, said that changing the frequency will involve construction on the transmission tower, which sits atop the South Campus Dining Hall building. 

“It will significantly expand our reach and strengthen our signal, so people can listen from farther away [and] have better quality when listening to FM,” they said.

Lisa Harrison, the station’s music director and a senior criminology and criminal justice major, said the change will make the station more accessible. Most people listen to WMUC while driving or at home, not online, so a wider range would mean better accessibility.

“I have friends outside of College Park who would love to listen to WMUC on their car radios instead of on their devices,” Harrison said. “We can bring more awareness to the existence of WMUC and that it is still a free-form radio station.”

It’s unknown what exactly the new frequency for WMUC-FM will be, but Redding said it will be somewhere around 90 MHz.

Featured image: A soundboard in the WMUC-FM studio, where students have broadcasted from for over 40 years. Photo by Mitchell Hang