WNHU radio station officially settled into their new home and went live on the air Oct. 22 at 5 p.m.

The new station, located at 46 Ruden St. and directly behind Celentano Hall, holds brand new, state-of-the-art equipment, two studios, various offices and student lounge center in its basement.

WNHU and the University of New Haven has, in conjunction, been planning to renovate the station since November 2011. Originally, the plan was to renovate the previous station, which was located in the basement of Maxcy Hall. However, the basement was proved to be uninhabitable by the village inspector, according to Bryan Lane, WNHU’s station manager.

Talks of moving the station to the house on Ruden St. began in December 2012 when Louis Annino, associate vice president and chief of facilities suggested the move. Facilities footed the bill, while the station used their annual phone-a-thon funding to purchase the new state-of-the-art equipment. The equipment is up-to-date, more efficient and up to par with the new industry standards now.

“It’s about time and it’s definitely an upgrade from where we were,” said Cara Demers, head producer of the UNHStable, the radio’s afternoon drive show. “It makes the station feel like it’s actually a part of the campus community now, rather than just thrown in the basement, away from everything.”

Lane and the rest of the WNHU staff were aiming for more campus interaction and exposure.

“I think one of the reasons we lack exposure is because we were in a place that nobody saw,” Lane said. “Nobody saw them working there, nobody saw the DJs in their element.”
The solution: windows in the studios.

Lane designed the studio himself and made sure to include windows that showcase the students on air. Windows create a connection between the campus and the students on the radio; it allows campus to put faces to the voices on the air.

Lane purposefully built the student studio, Charger, up a little higher so the students would be able to look out over the street and out by the library. This way, any traffic coming up and down Ruden St. will be able to see students sitting in the studio on the air.

Originally, the station was in Bartels where the Student of Activities Office now is, according to Lane, and was moved to the basement of Maxcy Hall back in 1985, presumably because there was more space.

“The difficulty is that this [the new studio] is a much smaller space and it had to be designed for efficiency,” Lane explained. “We didn’t bring a lot over with us because there isn’t any space for it.”

However, Lane’s main concern was to create spacious studios, which he succeeded in: the larger of the three studios, WNHU studio, now has four/five mics in comparison to the three the old studio had. This allows more students to be on the air at once, maximizing student participation and experience.

“Staff, students and community volunteers are happier overall here,” Katelyn Clark, the radio’s operation manager, said. “They come over here for the first time and they’re amazed that we’re not in a basement anymore; the facility is just beautiful and pristine and we’re excited to make WNHU even better.”

Clark, a senior who has been involved with WNHU for the past three years, wrote an opinion piece, Who Controls the Music?, in September for the Charger Bulletin, urging the campus to start streaming WNHU in the dining halls and other student spaces throughout campus.

Because of her article, campus officials have begun working on making this a reality. “Greg Overend and Ron Quagliani are working together with Becky Johnson to start streaming in all campus common areas, including the C-Store and eating places on campus,” Lane said.

Lane believes this change will take place sometime at the beginning of next semester, and that it’ll be a way to gain more campus exposure for the radio station.

Now that WNHU is officially settled in to its new home, new goals are on the horizon, like increased fundraising events that showcase the showcase and possibly reach out to the alumni.

“Being more a part of the campus,” Lane said. “That’s been the goal since I got here. We don’t have to be that station in the basement any longer.”

WNHU was just added to the Tune In app, which allows listeners to stream WNHU whenever and wherever they want, in the spring of 2014. In the past six months, they have garnered over 22,000 followers on the app.

WNHU is also streamed through their website, wnhu.net and also on the Charger Bulletin app, available for both iOS and Android.