WKCR's Facilities
- The Door
- Control Rooms and Studios
- The Archive Room and Record Library
- The Bathroom
- Return to Main Index
- Go to Next Blue Book Page (The Control Board)
The Door
Getting in the door is the hardest thing about WKCR.
When you approach the station's overhang and look to the right of the glass door, you will see an LCD panel:
You need to press "#" until you see "02 WKCR" in the LCD display:
Then, press "02." The system will dial:
You will be interrogated and then let in.
Go to the 2nd floor and you will see the station door. (But this is not the end of your trials.) You will see another locked keypad. Consult the DOE for the current code.
It is the responsibility of the on-air programmer to monitor the door, and to let people in as apropriate. If someone is calling for access, the Rolm Spyphone will ring FROM extension 75015. Pick up the phone, ascertain the identity of the person, and hit 9. All persons wishing to gain access to the station must state their name and department, if a member, or the name and department of his/her host programmer, if a guest.
Control Rooms and Studios
WKCR currently has one studio and three control rooms. A studio is essentially an acoustically treated room with microphone jacks connected to a control room. The studio is primarily used for recording and live broadcast of performances. A control room is where audio signals are mixed using the mixing console, and broadcast live or recorded using some device. Or both.
Master Control is designed as WKCR's primary on-air control room.
Master Control, as viewed from the announcement board.
Its mixing console is usually configured to feed the Program 1 bus to the transmitter. Master Control contains 3 CD players, 1 CDR, 2 DAT machines, 2 reel-reel tape machines, 2 cassette machines, 2 minidisc players, 2 turntables, a phone-air hybrid system, and accepts input from the mic jacks on the right side of the Live Studio. Since this is the studio that usually broadcasts over the air, and because it is equipped to accept equipment mandated by the FCC, operation of this room is restricted to station members who have passed the WKCR licensing test.
The Live Studio, located between Master Control and Production, is most often used for recording sessions involving equipment, or for large panel discussions.
The Live Studio, as seen from the front of the Master Control door.
Microphone jacks on the left and right walls of this studio connect directly to the channels labeled Studio 1 through Studio 5 on the boards in Production and Master Control, respectively.
Notice the mic jacks on the wall.
The Production Studio serves as the station's primary production facility.
The Production Studio, as seen from outside the Production Studio.
In addition to the usual outfit of standard playback and recording devices, Production accepts the inputs from the Live Studio, and contains special production equipment such as a Macintosh computer accepting the mic inputs from the Live Studio through an audio interface. The studio user can record a live performance in the studio to multiple tracks using the ProTools software on this computer. While using ProTools, one can mix the tracks live using the Mackie HUI, which automatically sets itself to mix all current ProTools tracks.
When broadcasting live, or in case of maintenance or emergency in Master Control, Production may be used as an alternate on-air control room.
Control Room A serves as the station's News and Sports broadcast and production room.
Control Room A contains the DJ mic (stand base shown) and turntable crossfader , in addition to the shortcut bar (right.)
Control Room A contains special equipment such as a phone-air hybrid system and the Shortcut Bar , which can digitally load audio clips and easily cue them for playback over the air. Control Room A also contains a mixer with a crossfader (for the turntables) and a DJ mic. All this equipment makes Control Room A perfectly suited for a talk broadcast, or a DJ-oriented show. Control Room A (as well as Production) can be signed out for audio monitoring or the pre-recording of interviews using the sheets on the door.
The Archive Room and Record Library
The Archive Room and Record Library are protected by key panels on the doors. Consult your department head for the location of your department's record archive, and the codes to the appropriate rooms.
To get into the music library or record archive, enter the code, followed by *.
The Record Library is located across the hall from Control Room A , and the Archive Room is located across the hall from Master Control. Do not leave the doors to these rooms open. No non-station members are allowed in these rooms.
The Bathroom
The Bathroom is also protected by a key panel on the door. You cannot get from the bathroom to the station without a code.
Here at WKCR, we guard ourselves from toilet monsters.
The code to the front door will also work on the bathroom. However, guests should not be given the front door code, so there is also a special code that will work on the bathroom door, but not the front door. Consult the DOE for this code.
