WREK grabs top honor in Creative Loafing

Taped to the door leading out of the WREK radio station offices is a sign that reads "What did you do today to make WREK awesome?" On Sept. 26, the 110 staff members who work to make the station "awesome" were rewarded by Creative Loafing critics, who named WREK Best Overall Radio Station in the newspaper's "Best of Atlanta 2007" issue.

WREK General Manager Brad Petrick, a third-year Mechanical Engineering major, was surprised when he found out the station had been awarded the title.

"It kind of came out of left field because we weren't expecting it at all. Usually a radio station of our caliber just goes for best non-commercial radio station, but to step up and go above and beyond 99X, Project 96.1, and all these other commercial radio stations is really monumental," Petrick said.

This is the first year that WREK, a non-commercial, student-run station operating on a $60,000 annual budget, defeated multimillion dollar radio stations in the running for Best Overall Radio Station in Atlanta.

To Thomas Shanks, a fifth-year Computer Science and Electrical Engineering major, winning the title was overdue. Shanks, who has been an active listener since he moved to Atlanta 16 years ago, now works as chief engineer for the station.

"I appreciate that this year Creative Loafing writers took the time to listen to something other than the in-your-face popular stations. Listeners are thankful for our efforts to provide diverse and interesting music, sports and community affairs programming," Shanks said.

In addition to sports and public affairs programming, WREK broadcasts rock, rhythm and blues, classical music, jazz and a number of specialty shows, including Indian Masala, featuring Hindi music, Kosher Noise, a sampling of Israeli music, and Hemispherios, a Latin rock show.

"We as a station are not working for the marketing dollars, so we can do what we feel and what we think is right. We want to please listeners, but in the same aspect, we're able to take risks and be different. Though people say we're not popular, we make things popular. I like to say that we start the trends,"Petrick said.

The station's vault contains music dating back to March 25, 1968, the first day WREK signed on the air with a broadcast area consisting of a ten-mile radius.

Several Bob Marley albums later, WREK's broadcast area now extends across Metro Atlanta, reaching as far as Cherokee, Douglas and Gwinnett counties.

Plans are already underway to extend the coverage area even further by upgrading the station's current effective radiated power of 40 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts, which would add between 8,000 to 10,000 potential listeners. While the station awaits approval from the Federal Communications Commission, financial considerations are also being made.

"This [project] may even require us to update the tower, which is already pretty old, in addition to the antenna and will likely cost a lot of money," Shank said.

WREK is also planning on acquiring a high definition system which would allow it to broadcast additional programming on the same frequency at a higher sound quality. The target date to lay the foundations for the system is March of next year.

"The station wants to be on the technological forefront of everything. If something new in radio comes out, like an HD system, since we are Georgia Tech, we want to be at the forefront of that," Petrick said.

The station has a history of being technologically minded. In 1994, WREK became one of the first radio stations to stream online.

Funding for WREK comes from Student Government Association. The station has also increasingly explored underwriting (the only form of advertising a non-commercial station is allowed to offer) in efforts to achieve financial independence, one of its strategic goals.

"We're looking to improve the cash flow to the radio station. Last spring semester we were bringing in about $100 a semester from underwriting, whereas now we're bringing in like $800 a month. Hopefully one day we'll be able to decrease the amount of money we get from SGA and in turn donate money back to the Institute," Petrick said.

Student listeners also support WREK's unique style. Last year, Benjamin Fang, a third-year Physics major, tuned in every week for the Scores show, which featured video game music scores and pieces.

"It wasn't the generic 'America's top forty,' with a play list the size of three. Having diversity on the radio is much better than having everyone play the exact same stuff. I'm glad they don't just pander the most generic, safest music," Fang said.

While the Creative Loafing critics chose WREK, the readers poll returned a different choice, instead selecting Dave FM (92.9).

WREK was also recently honored with the chance to broadcast its signal to a national audience via XM satellite radio. On Sept. 23, two hours of WREK programming ran on XMU channel 43.