The UW-Oshkosh student run radio station is marking 45 years on the air with the same transmitter.
WRST-FM went on the air on Sept 17, 1973 with a Gates-brand FM transmitter. The transmitter is the oldest of all the radio and TV transmitters licensed to the UW Board of Regents. It has operated for more than 300,000 hours.
Since it was turned off briefly to replace a component in August 2013, it has been off for only eight hours. Six hours of that total was for upgrades to its logging interface and during tower maintenance, which requires the unit to be shut down for safety reasons.
Before operating on the 1973 transmitter, the station debuted in 1966 on a 10-watt monophonic transmitter.
