Anthony Papciak and Timothy Peruski banter during the course of their radio show being recorded in the Eagle Radio studio, located in the basement of Halle Library between the computer labs and Paradox Café.
“I think that should be a new thing,” Papciak said. “I think every time someone comes into the radio station, we have them initiate a ‘Schwing’.”
“I think you should just ‘Schwing’ whenever,” Peruski replied. “I think there should be no lead up to the ‘Schwing.’ Just random ‘Schwings’ throughout the day.”
Papciak and Peruski are just two of the DJs who make up the Eagle Radio roster, which runs seven days a week throughout the EMU school year. Their show “Schwing!” is every Thursday from 2-4 p.m.
“ ‘Schwing’ is a term used in [the movie] Wayne’s World,” Peruski said. “The word has been dead for a while. It is part of my personal campaign to bring it back. It’s been going on since high school.”
Eagle Radio once only existed through the confines of EMU’s local television channel. Now, the audience is able to listen live online to shows by first going to http://www.emich.edu/studentorgs/wqbr and then, on the homepage, selecting and downloading the sound quality best for their computer.
Eagle Radio has come a long way from when shows were first recorded in Quirk Theatre where none of the EMU public could hear it.
Now that they have evolved their practices and format to adapt more easily to the Internet, the people behind Eagle Radio have turned it from just a class to something the public seeks out.
Eagle Radio’s social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter and a MySpace page along with a standard Web site. Peruski uses Facebook and YouTube from his personal laptop to aid him during his show.
“I can play things right off the Internet on YouTube,” Persuski said. “I just pull up my Facebook and I pull up the Icecast. I run them simultaneously so if people send requests I don’t have to pull it up again because that can get complicated.”
Icecast is software that says how many people are currently listening to a program as well as the record for how many listeners.
“The record is 38 [listeners] or something,” said Peruski. “My highest is, like, 21.
“Toward the end of last semester, I got a set fan base of my 10 friends who would listen. [The show] is more about me having fun,” Peruski said.
Eagle Radio is for a class called CTAA 169 — Radio Station WQBR, for one hour of credit during one semester. Students can earn up to four hours credit in this class. Students currently enrolled get first pick of the time slots and the remainder goes to anyone else who might be interested.
“There’s a lot of problems with the class,” Peruski said. “Since the class only met once a month, they couldn’t get everyone organized to do what they wanted to do. It just kinda…[fell apart]. It was rough. But they are trying to revamp that.”
The only qualification to getting a radio show on Eagle Radio is being part of the EMU community. This ranges from being a student to a faculty member or a staff member at Campus Life.
“Since it’s summer, there’s very few people doing it, no one’s really around, so we had complete access to whatever [time slots],” Peruski said.
Peruski, who starts each show with “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, said, “I have themes [for the show] every week. I tend to revert more to the punk and the ska. I don’t talk about anything that serious and if I do, I just joke about it.
“I’ve always loved sports and I’ve always looked up to broadcasters, and I thought ‘I’ll give it a shot,’ ” Peruski said. “I want to tape some of my better shows and send them in stations. See what happens.”
“Who knows?” Papciak said. “Maybe this [Eagle Radio] will catch on and it will eventually be put on an HD channel or get put on an actual AM station on the radio.”
“I’ve been a professor here for eight years,” said accounting professor Angela Hwang, “I didn’t even know [Eagle Radio] existed. But I think it could really benefit EMU. There are lots of student organizations at the College of Business that invite a lot of guest speakers. It could potentially benefit non-COB students [to listen] as well. Many groups on campus don’t keep each other informed.”
To learn more about Eagle Radio or how to get involved, visit the official Web site. It includes the Spring/Summer schedule for the shows, classes offered and contact information.
