This just in from WPRB’s IT Director: Thanks to a recently completed upgrade, our 160 kbps mp3 stream is now available in stereo! Let us know what you think or if you’re having any problems with the feed.
Tag Archives: summer2008
Thu 9/4: "Bach On Thursday" Concludes
WPRB’s series Bach on Thursday, hosted by Teri Noel Towe, wraps up its summer this Thursday 8/14 at 6 AM with its fourteenth installment entitled “Johann Sebastian Bach Went to Princeton and Was Graduated with Highest Honors”.
This final episode will be devoted to recordings of the music of Bach made by Princeton alumni and emeritus Princeton faculty members. Among the artists to be featured are William H. Scheide, ’36, h’70, and H’94 (the founder and first Director of The Bach Aria Group), Ralph Downes (University Organist at Princeton, 1928 – 1935), Carl Weinrich (University Organist at Princeton, 1943 – 1973), Arthur Mendel (legendary Bach scholar and Chairman of the Music Department at Princeton University in the 1950s and 1960s), Charles Rosen, ’48 and *51, John Solum, ’55, William Parker, ’65, Joshua Rifkin, *70, and Ann Monoyios, ’72 and *74.
Your host for “Bach on Thursday” has been Teri Noel Towe, a Princeton alumnus (Class of 1970), known to a decade and more of New York City area classical music radio listeners as “The Laughing Cavalier”. The recordings featured on “Bach on Thursday” have come from Towe’s own extensive and comprehensive collection of recordings of the music of J. S. Bach.
Ice Cream Man's pictures.
Ice Cream Man, the country-crossing, Yaris-driving, floppy-haired gentleman who was giving away free bars, cones and popsicles at both the WPRB/Free Yr Radio concert in Philadelphia and outside the Princeton Record Exchange, has posted a healthy number of pictures from these two events. Yum.
Marvel to image after image of listeners, WPRB staff, record store employees and random passers-by enjoying some sweet treats.
You can also see a few other snapshots that were just added to the Free Yr Radio site. Click on [Recap] next to WPRB for all the fun.
The GOODmatter Photo Booth strips will be posted soon.
We’ll let you know when they go live.
WPRB Is Working Hard While You're Hardly Workin'
Whatever your plans are this Labor Day, make sure sure they include WPRB! Our regular Monday programming is on and we’re happy to make your day at the office, backyard BBQ and more a pleasant one!
Fri 8/29, 10PM: School of Rock on Dr. Cosmo's Show!
WPRB’s “Nocturnal Transmissions” program is among one of the oldest on our airwaves. For 18 years now, Dr. Cosmo has been playing us weird, awesome, and weirdly awesome sounds. On Friday’s program, Dr. Cosmo welcomes the Princeton chapter of the Paul Green School of Rock!
The PGSR is a performance-based music education program that utilizes the rock format as a way to teach children 7-18 how to play instruments. If you’ve never caught a PGSR showcase, don’t miss out!
Tonight: WPRB presents the Fringe Festival Preview Show!
Green Chair Dance Group (Photo credit: Philly Fringe Festival)
Tonight’s the last night of the preview shows for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and we’re proud to be a sponsor of it. If you have trouble deciding on what to see, well then, these previews are the perfect thing to help make up your mind.
The previews are being held at the Plays and Players Theatre (1714 Delancey Place) in Philadelphia. Doors open at 8PM. If you missed our ticket giveaways, fret not. The previews are easy on the wallet, at a mere $5.00 a ticket. If you like what you see, you can purchase tickets for the actual events right there!
Streetalkin.com has some great footage from one of the previous preview shows, if you need a preview to the preview!
Technical Difficulties: WPRB's FM Signal Is Down
WPRB’s FM signal seems to be experiencing technical problems at the moment. If you tune to 103.3, you’ll hear static. Our streaming options are operating at 100%; you can still listen online!
We are currently working to correct the problem. We’ll update this post, as well as our Twitter feed with more news.
04:55 PM We think this might be a fiber optic issue due to campus construction; our engineer is “out in the field”.
05:02 PM Princeton’s IT folks have come to the station; we’re trying to see where the break is on the line.
05:28 PM We’re still checking our fiber optics.
07:04 PM …Aaaand we’re back on the FM signal! Our fiber optic issue has been resolved. Thanks for your patience in this matter!
WPRB Visits… WPRB!
Yesterday, WPRB’s staff took a trip to visit our radio tower. Why? Um, because we’ve never been! You’ve probably passed our tower dozens of times and never realized it. We tell you about it every night when signing off. But really, what do any of us know about it?
What we do know: WPRB moved to this tower back in 1991, which boosted our broadcast range up to 14,000 watts. (That’s a lot!) Our tower shares space with several other stations, cell phone transmitters and whatnot. It rests peacefully in a state park, amidst spectacular green foliage. It’s so tall that some kind of bird (A condor?! A hawk?! An eagle!?) can be seen flying around the top. Last but not least: without the tireless work of WPRB’s Chief Engineer (Scott Fowler) and the tower, we’d be nothin’. The tower completes us.
After the jump are a collection of photos from our trip, so take a look!
The giant New Jersey Network satellite dish, compared to the size of the WPRB staff.
Spare satellite dish parts, just hanging around. Need one? (Kidding!)
Base of the tower.
Caution. Seriously! This place might be cool and all, but there’s tons of metal and high voltage electricity everywhere.
The door to our the WPRB “shack”. We use the phrase “shack” lightly because it’s the most high-tech shack we’ve ever encountered.
Conveniently set to “WPRB Rock.” Fun fact: the Optimod Audio Processor, a standard in broadcast technology, was designed by WPRB alumnus Bob Orban, who “wasn’t happy with the sound of albums being heard on the ‘new’ stereo FM stations.” Thanks Bob, for making such a great piece of equipment, and for keeping WPRB sounding great!
Scott gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the guts of WPRB’s transmitter.
The high tech way of making sure WPRB is still on the air.
In a space this small, there’s a place for everything.
An upside down sign.
Being held by a thread… sort of: the guide wires that keep WPRB’s tower up.
The WPRB staff, trying to reach the top of the tower, the only way we know how.
Interviews & Live Reports From Free Yr Radio!
Though we have official staff recaps coming at you shortly, have a listen to interviews we taped with some of the audience at last night’s Free Yr Radio event.
» Listen
Not only did we tape interviews, we reported live from the event on WPRB! Julia from x Clean Yr Room x chatted quickly with DJ KPC at 6PM ET.
Fri 8/1: Dr. Cosmo Dives Into The Vaults
WPRB’s “Nocturnal Transmissions” program is among one of the oldest on our airwaves. For 18 years now, Dr. Cosmo has been playing us weird, awesome, and weirdly awesome sounds. On tonight’s program, Dr. Cosmo is diving into his decades-spanning personal LP collection to bring listeners some very extra special music.
“Nocturnal Transmissions” with Dr. Cosmo airs every Friday on WPRB, 10PM to 1 AM ET.
Direct from the desk of Dr. Cosmo, Esq.:
I have spent the past day sorting through boxes of old vinyl LPs from my basement. Some of these records I haven’t laid eyes on in 10 years and, in some cases, I haven’t actually spun these on the air since 1978. I’ve unearthed quite an eclectic collection of audio treasures.Some of these tidbits are records that we listened to in high school. Some of the selections are from music videos that I worked on over the years in L.A. And, some of these gems date from the 60s (grade school and junior high dates for some of us).
All of this audio came into our lives many years before the wave of digital ones and zeros. Yes, it IS convenient to carry 10,000 songs to the station on my iPod. However, that convenience is just a little too comfortable so I have issued myself a performance challenge to produce a four-hour program using music that I haven’t previewed nor placed on a turntable for between 10 and 30 years. What will happen? What direction will present itself? Just how scratchy are some of these old 7″ jukebox veterans? I will be using the DiscWasher system (remember THAT?) quite a bit, I suspect. So many variables and unknowns…
I am excited.
My AIM is to listen to the music, to split my attention as performer and listener, to honor the role and, as much as I can honorably bear, BE the program.
So, my “usual” mix of digital offerings will be completely replaced by Olde School, black-plastic-with-a-hole-in-the-middle, licorice pizza, VINYL. For tonight’s edition of Nocturnal Transmissions, I will be foregoing the use of my iPod, iPhone, CD and DVD players, computers and using only the turntables in the studio as I spin ‘n’ grin with 33-1/3 r.p.m. and 45 r.p.m. 12″ and 7″ PVC platters in monaural, stereo, and SQ Quadraphonic (for those who still have their 70′s quad gear up & running…I’ll probably have a few words about that somewhere in the mix).