Radio Radcliffe Celebrates 1000 Nights of Broadcasting

Passing the 1000 mark in nightly broadcasts will give Radio Radcliffe reason to celebrate at a reception commemorating the event from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday in the Field House.

The seven-year-old radio station will take time out to sip tea with Annex administrators and other friends of the group, who have pushed its progress through its short life. "No special program will be broadcast," Elizabeth Bibber '52, business manager, said yesterday. "In fact, the exact date of our 1000th birthday is hard to determine, but we know it was sometime this week," she added.

WHRV's Baby

It all began in the summer of 1943 during the manpower shortage, when two female disc jockeys who had been "whirling the platters" for the Harvard Network's "Swing Out" program decided that 'Cliffedwellers needed a station of their own. At the start "R-squared" was WHRV's baby. Aside from a $25 good-will gift from the Annex board of hall presidents, the only assets the embryo enterprise possessed were duplicate records and rejuvenated equipment cast off by the Network.

After setting up shop on the second floor of the field house where it still remains and getting the transmitter into working condition in the basement of Barnard Hall, the fledgling commentators opened the with programs of their own. Collaboration with the men in Dudley, however, continued through an open "telephone-line" program exchange.

Men Were Useful

Music I listening hours were the 'Cliffe station's chore in return for certain special broadcasts and popular Network programs. The men also proved convenient to have around to solve many mechanical complexities of the new system. Radio Radcliffe now has its own squad of skilled craftswomen handling the production difficulties.

Only once did a regularly scheduled broadcast fail to reach its listeners on the Quadrangle. In January '48 diggings for the Moors Hall foundation cut through one of the station's arteries and temporarily suspended operations. One in a thousand--that seems a good enough average.