The radio journey moves to the Windy City

After a rejuvenating year in Bible school and a year working, I prepared to return to college. This time, I was bound for Moody Bible Institute in the heart of Chicago.

Now in my third year of college, I was getting more heavily involved in my major. Since the classes often focused on production, my weekly radio show was a welcome change. Except for one semester in which a regular-format show was required for a class, I continued to do special-format shows. I tried to find out what people wanted to hear but why would you want to listen to a station that can only be heard in three buildings on campus?

I grew up with hard rock and screaming metal in the 1990s so I often mixed some of that in with newer music. My first year at Moody, I co-anchored “Smashdog” with a guy named Luke. We played mostly punk and rap. I am not sure why I thought those styles were still popular but I realized that my tastes were not mainstream either. It was fun to learn how to share responsibilities for a show. A number of our fellow students even called in requests.

Moody Campus Radio was more organized than WIWU. Announcers followed a set schedule during the daytime. Special-format shows ran late at night. The station went off the air at midnight. At least one of my shows ended the broadcasting day. Since I was old enough to get a curfew exemption, I took advantage of this opportunity to stay up late at the radio station.

At one point midway through my two years at Moody, one of the radio staff showed me how to record songs from CDs into the computer. I recorded a number of songs this way but I was never happy with the levels. The songs sounded louder when I recorded them than when they went over the air. I am not sure what the problem was but it bothered me enough that I think I stopped playing most of those songs. Production has never come easy for me.

I recorded my last radio show for my senior project. I scheduled the entire two hours in advance with stops to announce song information, weather, concerts and sports. Each show had a theme. I wish I had focused more on the theme and transitions and less on a glut of information. Too much information can make it hard to stick to a schedule.

While radio was my first love, I discovered new talents when I joined the Moody Student newspaper staff for my senior year. I started out as the sports and editorials layout editor. It was my job to organize text, photos, graphics and color (sports, back page only) for the biweekly campus newspaper. For the second semester, my responsibilities were cut from four pages to three pages of sports only. Since I also wrote some articles, this change was very welcome. Initially, I used this access to information to improve my radio show. The quality of my radio shows began to decline, though, as I my interest in quality journalism grew.
Although I continue to enjoy the intimate world of radio, I have mostly left it behind since graduating from Moody. I enjoy using the writing and layout skills that I learned but I have very little interest in a return to radio broadcasting. Why? I am not entirely sure. A disappointing internship and a tough job market were factors. Tomorrow, I will close this series with a look at my frustrating time as an intern at WUSN, “US99, Chicago’s Country Station.”