First-Time College Radio DJ Tells Tale...

The great thing about the Internet is that you can find diary-entry posts like this one today from a college radio DJ after his first time on the air.

"I spent my first two hours on air this morning from 4 to 6 a.m.—first time in my life on the radio as a DJ. It was the most amazing thing...So why am I so wired now, even hours later? Perhaps it was the performance of the DJ art. That really might be it. Mostly, however, I loved the precarious nature of live local radio: I had the airwaves to myself, and, if I screwed up, we’d have dead air and unhappy listeners across northern Vermont. I’ve done stage work before, playing to a few hundred on a theatre stage, but who knows how many were listening this morning. At 5 a.m., perhaps it was just a dozen folks coming off work or going to—or maybe it was a few hundred. No way of knowing in community radio..."

I have no idea how I felt after my first show, but some of the emotions shared in this post feel familiar to me today, even after being on the air for years and years. There is something very energizing about doing live radio and the author captures that feeling when he writes about djing at University of Vermont's WRUV 90.1 FM. And, indeed, those graveyard shifts are the home of many new DJs and can sometimes be a lonely place (wondering just who's out there listening) or an invigorating place full of creativity and experimentation.