On a sunny, spring afternoon in 1992, Tom Egert drove home to Carbondale
from St. Louis propelled by the sounds of reggae and salsa on his
car radio. This enlivening musical mix broadcast by KDHX, St. Louis'
community radio station, brought Tom happily within 20 miles of his
home before he'd driven out of range of the station. Scanning the
local radio dial, he could find no comparable musical programming
and in that moment of frustration the idea of creating an invigorating,
culturally diverse, community radio station in southern Illinois
was born. Heterodyne Broadcasting Company, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization
was founded in 1993 and ground for the station building was broken
in the fall of 1995. The first Volunteer recruitment meetings were
held February 6, 1996. Over 100 people attended the two meetings
that day; from those, 40 completed training and began regular operations
about two weeks later. At first the station was on the air from 4-10pm
daily and grew quickly from there. Currently, over 125 volunteers
produce more than 80 weekly programs. Several have been on the air
from the very beginning. The programming is a mirror of the diversity
of our community, with music from across the street to around the
world, as well as a vibrant section of local talk programming and
more.
In August 2003, thanks to the efforts of our founder Tom Egert,
the late US Senator Paul Simon, and the generous contributions
of our listeners, we upgraded our broadcast power from 700 to 3,000
watts. WDBX now covers all of Jackson and Williamson counties,
as well as most of Perry and Franklin, and parts of Union, Johnson
and Saline counties. In all, our signal can reach over 150,000 southern
Illinoisan's.
