Beginnings As A Radio "workshop"
Details about the beginnings of "The Harpur Radio Workshop" are few and far between (in the 1950s, the college started as "Harpur College," an offshoot of Syracuse University, thus the name of the organization). In 1954, a loose organization formally called "The Radio Workshop of Harpur College" is formed, and it seems that its primary function was to connect interested college students with area commercial radio stations and get them involved in doing production work for these stations.
In October 1961, members of the Workshop began to construct their own AM transmitter. The first incarnation of a self-broadcasting Workshop started in May 1962, then called WRAF (the letters "RAF" were chosen by the Workshop because SUNY Binghamton's Rafuse Residence Hall was where the broadcasts originated). While the broadcasts were received on 590 kHz on a standard AM radio, the broadcasts are carrier-current, which is "closed-circuit" in nature, as they were transmitted through the power lines of only two residence halls. Accordingly, only the residents of those halls could receive the maiden broadcasts.
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