History

Grove City College's WSAJ has a long heritage of broadcasting, spanning 90 years.

Grove City finds itself among the true pioneers in radio broadcasting. The mind behind this undertaking was former physics professor Dr. Herbert W. Harmon. Dr. Harmon's research and experimentation made possible one of the first radio broadcasts to be made in the world, and places him among the "greats" in radio's hall of fame.

Grove City College's radio experimentation began in the spring of 1913, when a radio receiving station was opened in the old Physics Building on the lower campus. An experimental transmitting station was licensed in the fall of 1914 with call letters 8CO. After a brief moratorium on amateur radio during World War I, the college returned to the airwaves for experimental and training purposes in January 1920 as 8YV.

On the evening of April 26, 1920, under the watchful eye of Dr. Harmon, Weir C. Ketler, president of the college, addressed the New Castle Rotary Club nearly 20 miles away.

"Back in those days," said L. Ted Hindeman, '37, "it was hard to believe that the human voice could be transmitted and received over so many miles with no connection other than air waves."

After receiving its license as WSAJ-AM in November 1922, the station moved to the brand-new Rockwell Hall of Science in 1932. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission licensed WSAJ-FM, and just over a decade later, the studios moved from Rockwell Hall to their current location on the ground floor of Ketler Dormitory.

A power increase granted in 1995 allowed WSAJ to transmit at 3000 watts, broadcasting over a nearly 50-mile radius. Syndicated classical and jazz programming replaced student broadcasts on WSAJ, but in 2003 the Board of Trustees approved the return of student broadcasting, which can currently be heard every night of the week.

In early 2006, the college surrendered its license for WSAJ-AM due to technical and financial constraints. An era of radio history came to a quiet end, but WSAJ-FM remains on the air!