Jacksonville, Alabama, a town of just over 14000 busy people. But how do they all stay connected? Well, they listen to WLJS radio. On the air for over forty years, WLJS is run completely by us, the students. Since 1975, the goal has been for students to engage in their local communities.
So next time you’re driving down a back road and need something to listen to, tune in to ninety one point nine FM in Jacksonville. WLJS, your cure for common radio. Radio. Today on the 35000 watts podcast, we talk about building a college radio station from the ground up. This involved a 21 year old Mike Sandefer approaching the FCC to get this done, as well as dealing with college streakers, overcrowded studios, and nude sunbathers.
I’ve heard a lot of shenanigans in college radio, but nothing like this. So join us today as we talk with Michael Sandefer from WLJS FM in Jacksonville, Alabama. Well, hello. Today, we have a special guest, Michael Sandefer. He actually built a college radio station from the ground up.
I’m so glad to have you on today, and your story is just so cool. So tell us your story. Oh, wow. Back in the I was in college at Jacksonville State University in North Alabama, Northeast Alabama, and, wonderful college. It’s growing today.
Still just a huge college, around 10000 students. Anyway, the only thing really wrong with the college was we did not have a radio station. And I thought, why not? When you looked at other universities in Alabama, like Alabama or Auburn University, Troy, there were so several others who did have FM radio stations. And I just thought since I liked to play radio, and I like to do something, in the evening, particularly at night when AM radio was still big, and see how far away I could pick up an AM radio station.
At night, it might get them out like WLS out of Chicago Years ago and other stations. So I’m just I like to play radio. And so I had an idea of, let’s just, what do you do to put a radio station on the air? I started reading about it, doing a few telephone calls back when telephone calls were expensive. Okay.
So what year was this? Give us a time frame. Okay. I started college in ’70. This was probably ’72, ’70 02/00 or that we were, thinking about doing all this.
And we’ll just go with ’73. And we, started thinking radio, and I was also the student government association business manager. And so I explored it with them some, and everyone there, we, the students, we liked radio. That’s an idea. That’s a crazy idea.
What can you do? So that was kind of my project to see what we could do. And I figured out by finding it, but I got the application process together and hand filled in an application for a construction permit for a new radio, let’s suggest in ’73, or ’70 04/00. And that was with the FCC. Right?
With the FCC. So all the government paperwork, good golly, that was a lot back then. So I’m filling in the paperwork. And then snail mail, we had to put it into a mailbox. We send it over, and they start considering our application.
Well, it was returned to me, as best I can recall a couple of times for corrections. And I would make little corrections. I’d call a couple of, folks who may know more than me because they were engineers. And, we sent it back. And then the last time I decided this was a big deal back in the to drive this 80 or 90 miles from Jacksonville, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia, where the FCC office was at that time, 1 of them, for me.
You were really committed. Like, you were gonna make this happen. And, my parents were upset. You did what? You drove to Atlanta.
And, of course, it was big then. It’s huge now. And, but I went over there and submit and they just looked at me like, what are you doing here at our office? You know? But I just hand submitted the, application again, corrected, and kinda sat down and waited.
And they said, well, give us a few minutes. So I did that. And how old were you? I I looked at all this. This is I was 21 ish.
Can you believe that? I mean, that’s amazing. So I was 20, 20 1, and I’m sitting there. And then finally, someone comes out from behind the doors, because you’re not allowed behind the doors there. And, are you are you Michael Sandifer?
I said, yes, sir. That’s me. And he’s holding the paperwork or something. So I need to sit down and speak with you a few minutes. So let’s go into this room, which we did, little conference room.
And he said, so who did the application? I did, sir. Are you an engineer? I said, no, sir. I’ve got, I think, something to operate CB radios and stuff like that back then.
It was a useless license, but I had that. And so the gentleman sat there with me and he said, you need to correct yada yada, 2 or 3 lines in there. And, he suggested answers that should be there. So I’m rubbing it out, trying to get it corrected, and then, handed it to him. And he said, we’ll be in touch in a few days.
We’ll send you something through the mail. So I thanked him and then get in my car and drive all the way back to Jacksonville, Alabama. And, just like, well, when will the mail ever deliver this? So we waited and waited. And, honestly, two ish weeks to three weeks later, in the mail coming to my trailer, because I’m living just in a mobile trailer in college just trying to get by, I get the something from the FCC is all on the envelope, you know.
And it’s like, oh, this is it. This well, I hope this is good news. And so I, what I did, I just actually just went in there, ripped the envelope open, and sure enough, I’m reading and reading, and and it said they had awarded us a construction permit to build an FM radio station on the frequency of ninety one nine there in Jacksonville, Alabama. So I think it had to sink in. I’m just going crazy.
So you’re ecstatic about this. And then then what happened? What’d you do next? I might have skipped the class, but I deliberately got out and went straight to our the president of the university’s office. And they were like, well, you have to have an appoint no, ma’am.
I need to go in right now. So I just charged right into doctor Stone’s office waving this piece of paper. I said, we’ve got a construction permit. And so when he got me to settle down some, he’s like, so what are you talking about? Well, sir, you said you wanted to build a radio station.
That would be good if Jacksonville State had 1. So guess what? We now have nine months, and I made that up, but nine months to build a radio station and get it on the air. And he it just finally sunk in. So we’re gonna have a radio station.
I said, yes, sir. Here in a few months, we will have a radio station. So we’ve got a lot to do. And I said, I just, our administrative building at that time was Bip Graves Hall. That’s where the president’s office was and everything.
So I’ve listed that building as where the studio would be on all of this paperwork with the SEC. And, he, just really? So we’ve gotta give you yes, sir. We need a small office here that we can turn into a studio. And so that’s he’s just, I don’t know what you know, we’ll have to get doctor so and so and other all these execs in there.
And, well and I said, and FYI, just to let you know, we’re gonna put the antenna on the tallest building here on campus, which is across the street from Bibb Graves Hall. It was Houston Cove Library. It was 12 or so stories tall. What? We can’t put anything.
That’s our new library. We can’t we’re just gonna put a little tower up there and put the antenna on the side of it now. So in your FCC application, did you have to pick call letters first, or was it get the construction permit and then decide your call letters? Well and, about the call letters as we’re gonna put it into this real quick, we sat around my trailer and came up with a list of call letters you could submit request. And we got the first one that we wanted, and it represents something even even today that I had to continue to remind the university.
But we got the call letters w l j s. And what we were wanting that 1 so much for, and they were not in use at the time because I was checking and looking and all, We love Jacksonville State or Jack State is what they call it. So we got those 4 letters, and it represents we love Jack State. So we got our call letters, but we had a dropping 10 watt transmitter. We were gonna put in a 3 bay FM antenna.
So we had a ERP of, like, 13.5 watts or something. Not a lot And explain what that means to somebody that doesn’t know what that means. Effective radiated power with the 3 bays, it would up to 10 watts up to essentially your light at 13 watts, 13 and a half watts. And we had elevation. With FM, elevation is good.
The higher the antenna, the better. And there are restrictions on whether you’re a class a, b, c, whatever the station is. So we did all that, and we peaked it out the best we could with 10 watts. You know? So you’re thinking of going on the air with an FM station Yep.
In the midst of all the AM powerhouse stations at that time. And a lot of the college radio stations at that time were either carrier current or AM, but you’re like, we’re coming out of the gate with FM. I wanted to go FM. I was enjoying what little bit I was hearing on FM stations, how the sound, the quality, no static when you’re having, say, thunder and lightning outside. And I was enjoying what I was seeing, and I’ll I don’t wanna say I was looking into the future, but I think this is a direction to go instead of Definitely.
Building AM station. Exactly. And so and a couple of the universities had FM radio stations. So got busy. I got with our maintenance department.
They gave us a office there in Big Graves Hall. And so I’ve got this large office to convert into we had 2 studios, actually, an on air studio and a production studio, and then 3 or 4 little offices for all of us to sit in when we’re doing our business and all. So you had nothing to start with. How did you get, like, you know, the studio equipment and stuff that you needed? Then I started the, seeking of stuff.
We need a lot of money. We need this. I’m still the university still had made up their mind as if they had any money to give us. Right. But I went out, and my career over these past fifty years has been a lot of salesmanship.
I’ve been selling franchises and things like this, but I started back then selling the idea of, would you like to support Jacksonville State University? We’re building a radio station. And so a company in Anniston, Alabama in the same county, not far from Jacksonville, McCord Communications did a lot of stuff in our in Eastern Alabama with communications, putting towers up and stuff to help companies communicate before we all had, you know, the nice cell phones. And, I got down there and I met with them, And they said, we’ll be happy to donate a 45 foot tower on top of Houston Cole Library, and we will install it, all of that. Put that up to That’s awesome.
So, I went in again to interrupt doctor Stone, but let him know we just gotten a major thing here being donated, and we got us a 45 foot tower. It doesn’t sound tall, but our average height above, average terrain was really pretty good when we’re up there. We’re just gonna cover 10 miles best best out around the station. And so had that going underway. And then I just started going from radio station to radio station.
Hey. Introduce myself. Here’s what we’ve got going on. I always have, a copy of the construction permit. We’re building radio station.
We need an audio board. We need, back then, not cassette tapes, but the little tape machines that would play music. We need turntables. So I’m just looking for any extra equipment you might have, And different stations donated things. So McCord Communications donated this tower that you were gonna put on your tallest building, and you could already tell that doctor Stone wasn’t too thrilled about that.
Now 1 thing that the McCork communications people said, we’re gonna have to put lights on your tower, and, you’ve gotta have 2 side lights, and you’ve gotta have a beacon on top. And we don’t have that, you know. And so see if you can find it. I actually found a radio station over in Arab, Alabama. They had a beacon sitting there.
So I got it. They helped me load it. That thing has two, three hundred watt bulbs in it. And I get that, and they said, oh, yeah. We got some satellites here.
So, anyway, I get it all in the car and get it home. And that night, I’m calling friends, and I’m saying, come on over to my trailer, and we’ll have a beer. Okay. And get there. What’s what’s glowing in your trailer?
I fixed that light up and plugged it into the wall. So 600 watt bulbs are just My gosh. Just blow. And, so we got to do that for a couple of nights, and then McCord said, if you’ll get it to the library, we’ll get it up on top of the tower. But I had a couple of two or three nights.
We had a good time. Everybody’s, I wanna go see what’s going on in that trailer. Uh-huh. It’s red light. Yeah.
It’s now the party trailer. And, it it was it was a lot of fun. So they got the tower finished. Okay. So you’re like a business student, and there’s no mass comm department or journalism department at Jacksonville State University at this point.
You know, every radio station has to have an engineer on duty. So what did you do about finding an engineer? And I met a gentleman, I’m gonna suggest his name was Larry Hughes, who had a engineering license. And he was going to Jacksonville State University, and he’d heard the rumor that we were building a station. And so I said, well, can you just help us?
So he started helping. He lived out of town in Birmingham, Alabama, but he would come up there to class 2 or 3 a week. And so as we begin to get money to buy some of the equipment we needed, like a new antenna, a new transmitter, boy, 10 watt transmitter wouldn’t be. But, anyway, we get some of this stuff in, so we started working to install equipment, and we had enough equipment to install the own air studio. So I just started how we’re gonna do this and do production and all.
So kind of our first thoughts were when we get it on the air, we’re gonna sign on at, like, six in the morning and shut it down at ten in the morning and sign back on at noon. And then we have a two hour window to do production in our own air studio because we don’t have enough equipment yet. So we were solving problems as we go. Then came the question to me. Larry’s like, I’m gonna need some help.
You and I need to climb this little 45 foot tower and put these 3 FM bays up, hook up, you know, the coax and everything to it, and get that up there. So here I am up there swinging around on this short tower, wind blowing and, like, just holding on. Just, oh my gosh. What No OSHA standards. Yeah.
Yeah. Imagine Just 2 crazy college kids climbing this tower. And I was there a safety belt on us? No. Safety belt’s your hands.
You know? You’re just So we get the antenna, and then the process just continues to build this, do that, work on this at the studio over the course of several weeks. So I’m just gonna say several weeks. I’m gonna probably a couple of three months. It took a while.
And we just keep on working it. So you’re gonna bring on people that are gonna be DJs, these college kids, and just throw them on the air? Like, how did you do any training? Something that’s interesting to note back then, and a lot of towns may still have it, you had cable. You were a big wheel if you had cable instead of a TV antenna to see the TV stations on cable.
Well, all the cable stations here, it seemed like in where I grew up, you had an information channel or something that always played background music. So we hooked up with the local cable company and said we’re putting a radio station on the air. It’s gonna be a few more weeks, but we wouldn’t mind going ahead and providing music and just carrying on. So prior to us going live and going on the air, we were practicing on the cable. You could tune us in on, let’s say, channel three or wherever it was on the TV.
So you tune us in, and there we are learning how to be a radio disc jockey and hello and all, you know, and try to talk the radio voice and try to sound as professional as possible. So was really smart. Yeah. So we had a chance to practice. Yeah.
And so, anyway, once we got the station kind of, close to getting ready, myself and the engineer, one day, we’re working doing stuff all over either up at the, antenna or the transmitter or down in the studio, back and forth. And back then, you linked the studio with us. We linked it from the studio up to the transmitter with a telephone line. You didn’t have the STLs and the nice stuff now. And so the engineer and I, Larry and I, are there working.
He said, you stay down in the studio, and we’re talking to each other on a corded phone. You know? You didn’t have your nice cell phones. You’re talking to them on a corded phone, and do this, turn this switch on, do that, play with this. Okay.
And he’s up there flipping switches and all around the transmitter and all, and it’s around 02:30 in the morning. And, so and I’m talking to him, and he’s like, well, put your headsets on. Well, okay. So I kinda had him on, still trying to hold the telephone up there and all. And he said, okay.
Do this. Do that. And, I started hearing something in the headsets. And I’m like, I’m, oh, really? And I just I looked at him.
We’re up what? And he said, Mike, we are now on the air. I’m like, damn. It works. Excuse my French.
But that’s what I love it. Damn. It works. And they, and I I’ll tell that story in a minute. But it’s like, oh my gosh.
So we did that, and then I’m like, oh, why did I just say a dirty word, first word ever transmitted? But no one’s listening at 02:30 in the Yeah. And we’re just, you know, having a good Safe harbor hours. And there I am at 02:30 in the morning, and, officially, I should have said, this is radio station WLJS signing on instead of saying, damn, it works, but it was just a blurb. And what was the first day?
What was the first day that you said, damn, it works. I’m going to suggest that, let’s back up three days and say the or the let’s say the It was probably a Friday that we actually said that at 02:30 in the morning, so Friday to Saturday in the morning. And, and I may be incorrect. Let me say it could have been a week prior or so because we had to get program authority from the FCC once we said the, station was built. So I was waiting, and I think we’d already submitted that.
And maybe we were testing everything. So let’s just say we had the program authority, and we said, well, let’s just start on a Monday. First day of the week, Sunday is, but Monday, first day of the week, we’ll put it on the air. And on that year in 1975, Sept. 0 ’20 was on a Monday.
Interesting enough, just a tidbit, next year in 2025, Sept. 0 ’20 is on a Monday. So we’re gonna really blow out this fiftieth celebration. So we had our authorization to begin transmitting, broadcast authority and all. And, so we received it a few let’s say a week or so ahead of time.
And it’s just we were making our plans to officially go on the air, and we’ve been playing music on the cable channel and practicing what we’re gonna say and how we’re gonna say and try to, brand our station a little bit. And 1 of our first announcers and, got notes here from him, David Driscoll, brother Dave, was on the radio again. And, brother Dave, and he suggested back in our day, when you looked at a radio dial, you’re just kinda tuning near numbers. You didn’t have something that said 91.9 or, you know, the exact like you do today in cars. So we looked at it and said, well, you know, all the little dials here suggest that 92, and we’re at ninety one nine.
So we logoed it or branded our station started with branding the station immediate to let me correct myself. Initially, we said we’ll be ninety two rock. Okay. That worked for a short time, but then we branded our station as ninety two j, which lasted forty forty forty five years. They’ve just taken that away now.
People didn’t understand. Where’s the ninety two from? We’re ninety one point nine. So let’s go back to that first day on the air officially. So we’re trying to get ready to really come on with a bang on September and do it as professional as possible.
And so, all of that said, we get around to that Monday, and everyone in, administration there, all the high ups, the department’s heads, different people. Everyone, we’re gonna put it on the air. Y’all may wanna show up around 11:30, but we’re gonna officially sign on at twelve noon. And I will sign the radio station on the air, and we’ll be live on the air for the first time. I cannot recall I think I notified the campus newspaper, the Chanda Clear, that this will be our first day of broadcast.
So if they wanted to put something in the paper, I don’t know if it made it or not. Trying to remember right now, but we got ready. And on that Monday, people started flooding in. And it’s speaking with a couple of other people, Bob Walter, a couple others working at the station. It’s just a handful of us trying to run this thing.
All of a sudden, the studio is so full that we had to they we need the students out of here. Mike can stay in here at the studio control board. He’s the I was the only student in the studio, and all the administrative staff is all in there. And it’s like No pressure. So we’re getting ready, and it’s getting close to twelve noon.
I said I’ll have to do the official sign on like stations did back then. They still do today. And, we got ready to put the thing on the air. So but the studio was just full of bodies, and everyone’s looking in through the window. You know, the window, like yeah.
And you’ve gotta be standing there going, I can’t believe this has happened. This is not so I’m getting there, getting ready, and I said, okay. It looks like looking at your watch and everything, it is twelve noon. So let’s flip the switch. So I’m over there.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Hearing it. And then I officially signed on the radio station.
It went something like this. This is radio station WLJS beginning another day of broadcast activity. WLJS is owned by the board of trustees of Jacksonville State University and is operated by and for the students of Jacksonville State University. Thank Thank you for listening, and welcome to another day of broadcasting from ninety two j. Or back then, it was 92 Rock, my mistake.
And then we were under what? And so we’re just sitting there instead of just wanna introduce everyone in the off in the studio here. We’re gonna be giving away some appreciation awards, and you’ll hear from several of the folks in here from Batcher Stone to others as we’ve moved through this. And, welcome to our first hour of broadcast. And so what we would like to do today is sign on with a song that we hope you all have heard, you’re sure you have, and maybe they’ll be playing this song a gazillion years from now.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, this is Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven. And so, off goes that song, and from memory, I think it’s seven and a half minutes long. And everyone’s freaking out. How long is this song gonna play? Well, you know, they wanna get on the air.
They’re getting all excited and they’re on the air. And I’m just sitting over there trying to make sure everything’s right. Larry was up at the transmitter. He called me. Everything’s just running good.
Everyone can hear you. You know? So that was kind of the first few minutes. And then, by the way, back then, reel to reel. We had reel to reel, and I was recording our first hour, hour and a half of broadcast.
So everybody, what’s that thing running for? We’re recording this. I still have it on CD. I’m gonna transfer it to a flash drive at some point in time, but we’ve got the first day or first hour, hour and a half of recording. And Michael sent me the track.
He did get that digitized and sent over to me. So let’s take a listen. This is WLJS FM broadcasting on their first day on air, Sept. 29, 1975. For haircuts from our first day’s broadcast.
Today’s date, Sept. 29, 1975. And, Led Zeppelin was our first song played, Stairway to Heaven. 92, WLJS. Serving Jacksonville State University, ninety two Rock, WLJS Jacksonville.
Michael Murphy on WLJ s, welcoming you into the first official day of broadcast. This is Michael d. Gonna be with you until 02:00 at two. David, brother Dave will be in. And now back to Michael’s account of that first day in the studio.
And finally, you know, doctor Stein, when are we gonna get on the air? Come on. Let me on the air. Anyway, so doctor Stein, we wanna thank you for this opportunity. We’re awarding you this certificate of appreciation, thanking you for all you’ve done.
And then I go around the room thanking people who had helped us, thanking McCourt Communications, some of the other radio stations who had helped us to build this thing and get it on the air, handing out these certificates live on the air, and then, did that, a good ten or fifteen minutes. Second song played was, Buckingham Nicks long before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Frozen Love was the second song played. So it played, and it just went on, and it just started just amazing what was happening with the, station, how we were getting just wow. You know?
And then we started seeing something later that day that just kinda shocked us. Back then you had a telephone sitting on the desk, the studio, whatever, and you have lights on it. And people would call, oh, wow. I’ve got 2 or 3 lines lit up. Hello.
Mike Sander for WLJS. Can we request a song? So we started getting requests. I was like, oh, my. We have people listening to our radio station.
This is good. Wow. That was a lot to learn about what it takes to build a college radio station literally from the ground up. I promise, yes, I do have nude sunbathers and streakers coming up in part 2. So we’ll conclude part 1 here.
Tune in for part 2 at your favorite place to listen to podcasts or at our website at 35000watts.com. Thank you for joining us today on the 35000 watts podcast, where we talk about the music, the culture, and the cool kids of college radio. If you’d like to be a guest on our podcast, please set up our website at 35000watts.com. You’ll find a feedback form there. Just fill that out, drop us a line, and myself or Michael Millard or anyone from the 35000 watts podcast and documentary will get back to you.
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