In 1955, fifteen years after its founding, WPRU obtained a license to build an FM transmitter and became the first student-owned and operated FM station in the country. From an antenna on top of Holder Tower it beamed a 250-watt signal to potential listeners within a radius of twenty miles, while continuing to broadcast simultaneously to the campus on the A.M. dial.
Its new status as a licensed station required a change in name when it was discovered that a ship at sea was using the same call letters. It accordingly changed from its Princeton University-derived WPRU to a Princeton Broadcasting Service-derived WPRB.
In 1960 -- its twentieth anniversary year -- WPRB asked the Federal Communications Commission for authority to increase its power from 250 watts to 1,000 on the frequency it was using. Its application was denied but it was informed that another frequency, carrying 17,000 watts, was available. WPRB applied, and when the application was granted, it borrowed $10,000 for equipment, and became one of the most powerful FM stations in New Jersey.
At first WPRB had trouble controlling its newfound power. Nearby radio users complained that it was blanketing out half the FM dial. A freshman claimed that he was picking up its music on his electric shoe polisher; an older citizen of the borough, that he was hearing it on his false teeth. These difficulties were eventually ameliorated and some relief granted close neighbors; at the same time, the station was making new friends as far distant as Philadelphia and Greenwich, Connecticut.
One profitable consequence of WPRB's new 17,000-watt signal was its interference with the programs of Station WTFM in Lake Success, Long Island. WTFM offered WPRB $5,000 and technical assistance if it would change its frequency from 103.5 to 103.3. WPRB replied that it would make the change, without any technical assistance, for $10,000 and WTFM agreed. In 1962, with the approval of the F.C.C., the change was made and the proceeds used a year later for purchase of equipment that enabled WPRB to become the first college station in the United States to engage in stereo broadcasting.
By the mid-seventies, WPRB was utilizing the energies of about a hundred undergraduates in its program, business, technical, and public relations departments to provide an estimated audience of 45,000, in a five-state area, with the same basic ingredients it had given its campus listeners in 194~0 -- music, sports, advertising -- along with more diverse elements added over the years -- national news, public affairs programs, university public lectures, chapel services, and live concerts in stereo. Typical of the staff's enthusiasm for their work was a banner in the station manager's office crocheted by one of the women members, reading ``God Bless WPRB.''
A number of WPRB alumni have gone on to professional careers in broadcasting, including former station manager Paul Friedman '66, who became producer of NBC's Today Show.