Yesterday, WPRB’s staff took a trip to visit our radio tower. Why? Um, because we’ve never been! You’ve probably passed our tower dozens of times and never realized it. We tell you about it every night when signing off. But really, what do any of us know about it?

What we do know: WPRB moved to this tower back in 1991, which boosted our broadcast range up to 14,000 watts. (That’s a lot!) Our tower shares space with several other stations, cell phone transmitters and whatnot. It rests peacefully in a state park, amidst spectacular green foliage. It’s so tall that some kind of bird (A condor?! A hawk?! An eagle!?) can be seen flying around the top. Last but not least: without the tireless work of WPRB’s Chief Engineer (Scott Fowler) and the tower, we’d be nothin’. The tower completes us.

After the jump are a collection of photos from our trip, so take a look!

The giant New Jersey Network satellite dish, compared to the size of the WPRB staff.

Spare satellite dish parts, just hanging around. Need one? (Kidding!)

Base of the tower.

Caution. Seriously! This place might be cool and all, but there’s tons of metal and high voltage electricity everywhere.

The door to our the WPRB “shack”. We use the phrase “shack” lightly because it’s the most high-tech shack we’ve ever encountered.

Conveniently set to “WPRB Rock.” Fun fact: the Optimod Audio Processor, a standard in broadcast technology, was designed by WPRB alumnus Bob Orban, who “wasn’t happy with the sound of albums being heard on the ‘new’ stereo FM stations.” Thanks Bob, for making such a great piece of equipment, and for keeping WPRB sounding great!

Scott gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the guts of WPRB’s transmitter.

The high tech way of making sure WPRB is still on the air.

In a space this small, there’s a place for everything.

An upside down sign.

Being held by a thread… sort of: the guide wires that keep WPRB’s tower up.

The WPRB staff, trying to reach the top of the tower, the only way we know how.

Help may be on the way, though; a newer and more efficient system circulates chilled water to cool the air instead. But there are drawbacks in these buildings, as well: “My office is freezing 24/7,” says Jon Solomon, who works at Princeton radio station WPRB. “I have the room set to 90 and it is still chilly. This system works too well, in my opinion.”

Special thanks goes out to the Princeton Record Exchange for supplying us with their awesome, instantly recognizable yellow shopping bags!

Chloe The Intern
We had a nice little table in a shady spot, and gave out bags of very nice free stuff until we realized that only two hours of the day had passed and we were running out of bags. So, being the quick thinkers we are, we decided to have an impromptu freestyle rap battle to give the bags away.

We tried really hard to spread the word, but it didn’t really work out; I did, however, ask Mr. Lif to come, which is probably one of the high points of my life. He was going home though, and the only person who showed up was this guy wearing short shorts. Hey, at least we gave it a shot. We got to see some of the music too – my personal favorites were Crystal Castles and Dan Deacon. Both of them had everyone going insane. Dan Deacon’s set was cut 15 minutes short but he still managed to give one of the most memorable performances; he made a sort of cyclone of people in which I almost died, and a bridge of audience members which you could run under. Crystal Castles’ vocalist Alice Glass was one of the best performers I’ve ever seen, too.

Sunday we went over to the World Café for a pretty substantial lineup. Twelve bands performed, many of which were local. My favorites were Tickley Feather, O’Death, and Daniel Johnston. Tickley Feather’s set was incredibly relaxing and beautiful, and the only way I can explain O’Death’s was an experience. One band member’s ukelele broke, the violinist’s bow was frayed down to a few strings by the end of the set, and the drummer’s cymbal had to be taped down and replaced about five times. I highly suggest seeing them live. Daniel Johnston went on very late, and was great. I actually hadn’t listened to much of his stuff, and I knew very little about him, which I regret. Everyone there was just so happy to be seeing him. His voice gave out halfway through the set, but he kept going; his last song was “Devil Town,” and everyone sang along with him. At one point, in between songs he told the audience about a dream he had where a man was being put to death for trying to commit suicide, and he was on trial. Then, Daniel said, “And this guy was me! And I was saying help me, help me!” It was wonderful.

Cody (Station Manager)
What follows are my own highlights from Saturday, 6/21, at Popped!… and whether they were worth it, or not. Overall, a good, clean time was had by all, and congrats to the lucky and speedy 150 or so people who managed to snag music gift bags from us before we ran out!

Worth It

- Just Barely: Dan Deacon orchestrating a human cyclone of kids running around in an ever-expanding circle, with a semi-naked overweight trucker dude in the center (he was wearing Speedos).

- Free drinks in the VIP area (from Coca-Cola to Skyy).

- Though I Looked Pretty Dumb: taking up to 5 minutes after they were done to realize that Ting Tings did that iPod commercial.

- VERY Worth It!: Running into ‘PRB listeners who’d grown up listening to us, and meeting those who’d never heard of ‘PRB.

Not Really Worth It

- $3 herbal-infused bottled water from Ayala.

- Vampire Weekend.

Maria T (Publicity & Promotions, etc.)
I have decided to commemorate this event with a haiku.

At Popped! did I
Drink enough or not enough
Lifestyle bevera…?

And of course, no post would be complete without some visual evidence. All photos courtesy of Maria T.

Working the audience.

Do they love our station, or just the bumper stickers?

Chloe The Intern and Alex T The DJ.

DJ Lance Loud interviews our lone rap battle contestant.

We taught you how to give a station ID.

L-R: Lance Loud, Chloe The Intern, Station Manager Cody, Alex T The DJ. Working hard or hardly working? You decide!

Here’s what various staff folks had to say about their meals:

Cody (Station Manager): “Despite intense security and the constant fear of discovery, we pulled together as a unit and executed our daring lunch raid with audacity and precision, thereby proving yet again why they call us ‘Radio Destructor‘.”

JP (Traffic, Community, Tech Director): “Scrumptious.”

Maria T (Publicity & Promotions, Community, Sales): “I really enjoyed the veggie burger, but I regret having the cotton candy.”

(Photo: Maria T)