It is not very often that one would have the opportunity to get hands-on experience to learn the necessary skills, techniques and discipline to enter the professional radio field.

WIDB, 104.3 cable FM, is a student volunteer-run radio station that came into being in 1970 when a group of pirate radio operators in the dorms grouped together to become a registered student organization.

Since then, WIDB has been struggling to get on the regular radio waves. It needed compliance from the University about legal requirements of the Federal Communications Commission. The administration was concerned about the ability to cover costs of being on the air, governance considerations in regard to WIDB’s Registered Student Organization status, jeopardy toward existing SIUC-held licenses and relationships with the local broadcasting community.

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In 1992, WIDB felt it had answered all these concerns, but even with a 6,000-strong student petition, John Guyon, then SIUC’s president, refused to grant the station permission to apply for a FCC license to go on the air.

Al Harper, WIDB’s program director/interim general manager, said the station gives students a chance to volunteer their time toward something positive.

You don’t have to be a radio-television or communications major in order to work here, Harper said. We accept all kinds of majors and train you to use the equipment personally.

WIDB’s top 40 college radio station format also has specialty shows, such as alternative rock, reggae, blues and jazz, along with the sports, news and weather.

It’s not just a place where people fart around and joke off, Harper said. This is a place of business.

We understand that people volunteer their time. We try to teach them a sense of responsibility.

Grant Deady, an SIUC alumni, worked at WIDB during his four years in Carbondale. He said without WIDB’s experience, he might not be where he is today as an account executive at WJOL-AM in Joliet.

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It prepared me for the real world, Deady said. As soon as WJOL heard I worked at one of the few only student-run stations in the nation, I was pretty much in.

WIDB is real, Harper said. It has opened doors and given opportunities in the radio business to a lot of people.

Just working at WIDB makes you available and marketable to get a job.

Alan Young, a radio-television major from Salem and a disc jockey at WIDB, said working at the radio station keeps him on a daily schedule and gives him a sense of what the real music world has to offer.

It gives me a good sense of what real radio is like, he said. I really like the improvisational aspect of being a deejay. It makes the show more lively.

WIDB continues in its efforts to gain an on-air license; statewide policies aimed at producing a more professional radio environment and higher sales goals are two ways they have responded to the administration’s objections.

We are looking for people who want to work hard and have fun, Harper said.