WMRA

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Public radio station at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

title: "WMRA" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1969-establishments-in-virginia", "public-radio-stations-in-the-united-states", "npr-member-stations", "radio-stations-established-in-1969", "college-radio-stations-in-virginia", "james-madison-university"] description: "Public radio station at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMRA" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Public radio station at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox radio station"]

Field	Value
name	WMRA
city	Harrisonburg, Virginia
area	Central Shenandoah Valley
branding	WMRA
airdate	1969
frequency
format	Public Radio
power	10,500 watts
haat	318 m
class	B
facility_id	65447
coordinates
callsign_meaning	W (James) Madison Radio Associates
former_frequencies	91.1 MHz (1969–1975)
owner	James Madison University
licensee	James Madison University Board of Visitors
sister_stations	WMRL, WMRY
webcast	Listen Live
website	wmra.org
affiliations	American Public Media
BBC World Service
NPR
Public Radio International
licensing_authority	FCC
::

WMRA (90.7 FM) is a public-radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Harrisonburg, Virginia. It is the NPR member station for the central Shenandoah Valley. Combined with its full-power repeaters and low-power translators, it serves much of west-central Virginia from Winchester to Lexington as well as the Charlottesville area. WMRA is owned and operated by James Madison University.

History

WMRA signed on in the summer of 1969, broadcasting on 91.1 MHz with 10 watts. The transmitter was at 851 South Main Street in Harrisonburg and the studios were at Alumni Hall on the campus of what was then Madison College. WMRA's signal was sufficient to cover the city of Harrisonburg proper. The station aired from 4 p.m. to midnight daily, and was a typical college radio station, with all programming produced by students.

WMRA moved to 90.7 MHz and upgraded power to 19.5 kW on November 12, 1975, at which time the station also applied for funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and joined NPR. As a condition of CPB funding, the station hired professional staff. While students continued to handle many on-air operations, the station adopted a typical public radio format of NPR news, talk, and classical music, with specialty programs of folk and jazz. Unusually for a public radio station, a student-programmed progressive rock show took the late-night timeslot. All rock music was dropped in 1980 owing to low listenership, to "no great student response", according to then-general manager Don Lanham. Student programming moved to WXJM (88.7 FM) when that station signed on in 1990.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/WMRA-FM_2014.PNG" caption="Previous logo"] ::

On January 14, 2008, WMRA took over the operation of Eastern Mennonite University's WEMC (91.7 FM), which faced declining ratings and little student interest. WMRA moved its daytime classical programming there in exchange for extra NPR programs that WEMC had previously aired because WMRA could not fit them into its schedule. Both stations kept their evening schedules intact; WMRA was hesitant to move its evening music programs due to WEMC's inferior signal. WEMC went all-classical on August 11, 2014, while WMRA picked up WEMC's remaining information programming and dropped its weekday music programming. WMRA has since started airing several weekend music programs and occasional weeknight music programming.

Network

WMRA programming is heard on network of three full-powered repeaters. WMRL and WMRY are straight simulcasts of WMRA; their existence is only acknowledged on WMRA's legal IDs. WMLU is owned by Longwood University, and breaks off from WMRA in evening and late-night timeslots to air its own music and student programming. ::data[format=table] | Call sign | Frequency (MHz) | City of license | ERP W | Class | FCC | Broadcast times | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | WMLU | 91.3 | Farmville, Virginia | 440 | A | | 2 a.m. to 7 p.m. | | | WMRL | 89.9 | Lexington, Virginia | 100 | A | | 24 hours | | | WMRY | 103.5 | Crozet, Virginia | 280 | A | | 24 hours | ::

References

"History Cards for WMRA". [[Federal Communications Commission]]}} ([[Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations/History Cards.
"Arbitron Station Information Profiles". [[Nielsen Audio]]/[[Nielsen Holdings]].
"WMRA Facility Record". [[Federal Communications Commission]], audio division.
(November 19, 1969). "Radio Station Seeks Assistance In Setting Up Special Program". Madison College.
(November 6, 1969). "Radio at Madison". Madison College.
(July 11, 1975). "First Power WMRA Broadcast Due". Madison College.
(October 28, 1975). "WMRA To Expand Range Nov. 12". Madison College.
(September 30, 1980). "WMRA terminates rock programming". The Breeze.
"New Programming".
(January 8, 2008). "WMRA & WEMC programming changes". hburgnews.com.
"New Programming".
(August 8, 2014). "WEMC unveils new programming, rebrands as region's home for classical music". emu.edu.
"WMLU Student Shows".
"WMLU Issues and Programs List - 2018 Q1".
"WMRA Engineering Resources".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::