The broadcasts of KCSU at Colorado State University and WREK at the Georgia Institute of Technology are no longer heard just by students and the local townspeople.

Student Member Abbie Tippie streams her music from the KCSU studio at Colorado State.

Like many college radio broadcasts today, their shows are distributed over the Internet and can be picked up by anyone with an MP3 player, or RealAudio, iTunes, or other Internet streaming software. And at such student-run college stations you can find IEEE student members sitting in the DJ chairs and working in the engineering rooms.

By day, Abbie Tippie, for example, is a junior electrical engineering student at CSU, in Fort Collins. But every Sunday night, Tippie takes over the airwaves at KCSU, at http://www.kcsufm.com, to spin Christian rock CDs.

“The nice thing about Web radio is that people can listen to us regardless of where they live,” says Tippie, who has been co-hosting her show since the fall of 2003.

“Some of my friends don’t own radios, but having the station broadcast online lets them tune in to hear me on the Web.”

Over at WREK in Atlanta, at http://www.wrek.org, when station manager Aakash Jariwala is not in class you can find the senior electrical engineering student making sure his broadcast equipment is working smoothly. Other stations where IEEE student members are helping to run things include the ones at Binghamton University in New York, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The stations offer a variety of music and talk-radio programming.

All a college radio station needs to turn its broadcasts into streaming audio is a streaming media server, a dedicated computer with encoding software, and a digital sound card. The audio enters the computer through the sound card, and the software compresses the information into streaming format so it can be sent over the Internet. The compressed audio is sent to the server, which has a high-bandwidth connection to the Internet. From the server the audio data stream hits the Internet and winds up in the listener’s player software or computer plug-in.

Student volunteers at campus stations learn the ins and outs of broadcasting, including not only how to use a microphone, work a CD player, or repair various pieces of equipment, but also the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s broadcasting regulations.

Abbie Tippie says being a DJ has improved her verbal and written skills.

PREPPING FOR THE SHOW  Whether broadcasting over a transmitter or streaming over the Internet, it’s the job of the engineer, of course, to make sure all the equipment is working properly so the show can go on. Joining Jariwala at the 40 000-watt WREK is station engineer Peter Sahlstrom, who also doubles as a DJ.

WREK was one of the first college stations to stream its content over the Internet, says Sahlstrom, who graduates in August with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. In 1994 students wrote their own streaming software application, and today the station still uses homegrown streaming programs that combine open-source and proprietary software. The station also is one of the few that archives programs so listeners can download shows that were played within the previous week.

“We run a 128-kilobit stream, which is like CD-quality audio, so if you have a fast enough Internet connection, you can listen to a clearer quality broadcast than if you were listening over the airwaves,” Sahlstrom explains. Encouraged by a mutual friend already working at the station, Jariwala and Sahlstrom joined the WREK staff in 2002 to benefit from some hands-on engineering experience.

“Like most college radio stations, we don’t get that much funding, so we end up just doing everything ourselves, like fixing speakers and repairing CD players,” Jariwala says.

“That do-it-yourself approach has given us some opportunities to do stuff we wouldn’t typically do in class,” Sahlstrom adds. The two recently helped relocate the station’s transmitter when WREK moved into a new building.

WREK doesn’t leave its budding engineers completely on their own. It maintains a list of station alumni and broadcast engineers living in Atlanta who have volunteered to be on call to give advice. Jariwala recently sought the volunteers’ help on the best guest microphones to buy for the station.

MIT’s WMBR (http://wmbr.mit.edu/) depends on the skills of Bryan Cord, the 720-watt station’s technical director. Cord oversees operations and manages a staff of 10 students. A graduate student himself, Cord plans to work in semiconductor fabrication when he gets his doctoral degree in 2008. Two years ago, the station added Web-streaming capabilities, and it recently began offering an online archive of its broadcasts.

As the technical director, Cord can have a 10-hour weekly stint that might be as mundane as fixing a CD player or as complex as getting the radio transmitter back on line after it shorts out. He says he stays involved with the technical work at the station and delegates to others the software-oriented projects such as building a database to index the station’s music library, which is now cataloged in paper notebooks.

“I like music a lot, and I like technology a lot,” Cord says, explaining why he joined the station. “I’ve been an electronics nerd ever since I was a little kid, so this job is a nice convergence of the two.”

Although Jariwala, Sahlstrom, and Cord don’t plan to make a career out of broadcast engineering, they all say they’ve benefited from the experience. Cord says he has become more organized and more adept at delegating projects and tracking their progress. All three point out that working at the station gives them a mental break from their studies and the chance to interact with musicians.

“It’s nice to come to the station and do something completely different than I would do in my classes,” Sahlstrom says. “I like the applied engineering side of this work, because I get to see from start to finish how everything works, not just my individual piece. I also learn about new bands.”

MUSIC AND VIEWS  From 6 p.m. to midnight, so-called specialty shows come on the air at 10 000-watt KCSU, including alternative music like the Christian rock Tippie plays.

“It’s fun doing my show because there’s so much freedom,” she says. “I love being the host.”

Shortly after she arrived at school, she approached KCSU about hosting its first-ever show devoted to Christian rock, a type of music she has been listening to for years.

“I really believe it’s a growing genre,” she says. “There are so many good artists who sing Christian rock music, and many people don’t even realize how great these performers are. Having a show like this on KCSU lets the audience know what’s out there.”

Tippie says she believes her work at the station will help in her career and, no, she doesn’t plan to give up engineering to become a full-time DJ.

“Doing a show like this requires good verbal and written skills. And because we must do so much preparation, we have to be go-getters,” she says. “Being a DJ also is a good way to get involved with activities on campus besides just engineering.”

Every Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern time you can tune your Web browser to North Carolina State University’s WKNC (http://www.wknc.org), a 25 000-watt station, and listen to John Kelly on a two-hour call-in sports talk show. Kelly, a senior studying computer and electrical engineering, talks with the host and four other cast members about college and professional sports. They also debate hot-button issues for sports talkers, such as whether Major League Baseball should ban players who use steroids.

Kelly says his radio work gives him a place to release the daily pressures of his engineering studies. “At first, doing the show made me nervous and added some stress, but it’s a great two-hour break to talk sports and have some fun,” he says.

Kelly, whose hometown is Oak Ridge, Tenn., says his parents and friends from across the United States tune in to his webcasts. His radio experience will help him with public speaking and polish his interview skills as he pursues an engineering job, he says.

“If I can talk to who knows how many people on the radio, then I shouldn’t have a problem talking to one person in an interview,” he reasons.

Binghamton University’s 1450-watt WHRW (http://www.whrwfm.org) is supposed to have a 50-kilometer radius, but senior Tom Triebwasser’s program can be picked up by his family 240 kilometers away in Red Hook, N.Y. Triebwasser, an electrical engineering student, has been cohosting a daily talk show since the 2001 fall semester, though the station has been streaming only since February 2003. For a half-hour each morning, Triebwasser and his cohost banter about the news, perform scripted comedy sketches, play music, and discuss life in general.

“We fly by the seat of our pants because the program is broadcast live,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to be involved in radio, and I do my show for the love of being on the air.”

Being on the radio also helps Triebwasser break free of the “geek” image associated with engineers, he says, noting, “That stereotype is going by the wayside. I’m showing that engineers can do all sorts of interesting things.