WVUR Management Blog

Organizations on campus are a way for college students to develop close bonds with other students with similar interest. WVUR is one of these organizations and often staff members spend so much time together, they begin to think of each other as family.

As some of you might have heard, a former manager and close friend of many involved with the station, was recently injured in a serious accident. Nick Kovatch was hospitalized for about a month with severe injuries. Thankfully, Nick has recovered and was released from the hospital to continue his recovery in the confines of his home. The station staff and friends of Nick are overwhelmed with joy for his recovery and would like to assist him with the expenses that have accumulated due to his hospitalization.

WVUR will be putting together a couple of events to help raise funds for Nick and his family. The first event will be a basketball tournament to take place at 2 pm on May 3rd in the Hilltop gymnasium at the Athletics Recreation Center. The tournament will be 3 on 3 and the cost will be $15 for a team. Teams can have as many as 4 players to allow for a substitution for each team. Teams can be any combination of players, just be aware that some all female teams may be matched up with an all male team as the tournament progresses. Brackets will be decided based on sign ups. Sign up sheets will be located on the station door and should be turned in by Wednesday, April 29. Every team is guaranteed two games and there will be other fun competitions throughout the day. Prizes will be provided for the winning teams and donations will be accepted throughout the day’s events.

Please keep in mind that all proceeds will go to Nick Kovatch and his family. Please join us for a day of fun for a great cause. We appreciate your participation.

If you have any questions please contact Michelle Niehaus at Michelle.Niehaus@Valpo.edu

admin Events

So a lion came in and broke our equipment…..not really.

At WVUR, we pride ourselves on running the station in a very professional manner, much like any other commercial station you would hear in a big market. But, sometimes, things don’t always go as planned.

We use an automation software called PSI. It’s basically like a computer-generated playlist that assigns commercials and sweepers and legal IDs to the proper times they need to play, as well as adding the correct type of songs to fill in our hours. Our DJs add and remove songs from our rotation as they please, but PSI is the backbone of the stations’ professional sound.

We have two main computers that run PSI; one is in the production room adjacent to the on-air studio while the other is IN the on-air studio. The one in the production room is where we load all of our commercials and music. We then send those to the on-air computer and it sorts all of the information we send. It then divides it up and plays it at the proper times. Unfortunately, a piece of hardware inside of the on-air computer went kerplunk. Which now leaves us with no on-air automation software.

This is one of the more difficult I have faced in my time as Program Director. Our job is to program the station through our software. Now without it, I have to program the station through humans, which is a bit more difficult. It’s hard to get 60+ DJs on the exact same page as to what we need to do to solve problems like these. But I’ve been very pleased with my on-air staff with how they’ve handled it. For now, I’ve given them free reign to play whatever they want to and we have “sold” it as MARCH MADNESS WEEK! Sometimes in radio, you have to take what you didn’t mean to do and make it seem like you meant to do it all along.

Because we load all of our music and commercials to the production room computer, we are able to play all of our saved files straight from there. So when there are no DJs, we are still able to play our entire music library. We are waiting on a replacement computer to run our software, but until we have that, we’ll keep making it work with what we have.

Signed,

Adam Amin, Program Director

admin Uncategorized Adam, Problems, PSI

Wednesday nights are my nights. We have our weekly management meetings on Wednesday night, tonight we had our ORG meeting as well, and as always, afterwards, I’m in the production room until the early morning hours. I spend my time here getting homework done, catching up on all my WVUR work, prepping for sports broadcasts, doing production, or just listening to music. I don’t know why I always end up here on Wednesday nights (probably because I’m EXTREMELY lame), but for some reason, there’s some peace and quiet here. I always get a lot of work done.

And as a bonus, the night janitor, Rich, knows my name and always chats me up around 2 AM. He’s a damn good 4-fingered guy.

Tonight, I’ve prepped for a basketball game, finished an English assignment, wrote a Torch article, and created your schedules for the next two weeks, along with listening to the new live album from Justice (A Cross The Universe…like our music staff, I recommend it). Although…NOW, I think I’m ready to go home. Of course, I’ll be back in the building in 6 hours for class.

If you want to check the schedule for this week, it’s right HERE: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddwp8n82_27fg6s4qfr&hl=en

Good night all.
Adam Amin, Program Director

admin Uncategorized Adam, Late Night