WMTU is the student run, non profit college radio station of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. That's is way up there in the Keewenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The station itself (the DJ booth, etc) is in the basement of Wadsworth Hall. The antenna is on the top of the MEEM, the tallest building on campus.

"Broadcasting with 100,000 milliwatts of power" is a funny way of saying how much power the station has (it amounts to just 100 watts, the power of a small lightbulb). The expression has floating around since the station started broadcasting in FM. Before that, it broadcast only in AM, and earlier still, it was broadcast only to campus and the dorms via a cable. Since in addition to the low wattage (about as much power as a small lightbulb), campus is also located in a valley, and above land that is rich in copper deposits, the audience is mostly limited to Houghton and Hancock. That was until the last few years, as they offer streaming audio from their website.

WMTU (sometimes people informally pronounce it "whimtu", but that sounds lame) is what you might call a freeform radio format. The DJs, who are mostly students, are allowed to choose their own playlists, drawing from the stations sizeable collection of CDs and LPs. Each new DJ is given training, but lets face it, most of them are there to share music and have fun, and don't have any plans to become professional radio DJs. Despite this, most of the DJs are exceptionally good, but it also means that they are going to play what they think is good, not just what they think will get better rankings. (see also top 40).

WMTU is a student organization and is one of the largest on the MTU campus. Membership (called staff), is fairly open. In accordance with the WMTU Constitution, Staff elects 8 senior staff. Senior staff, among other things, selects the "air staff" (the DJs, many of whom are also staff members), and lays out the programming schedule.

WMTU offers several advantages over your typical radio station, even including most college radio stations (I might speculate many colleges were a communications degree is offered...). The music is varied, as there is a new DJ and show every 2 to 3 hours, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You're much more likely to hear songs and bands you have never heard before, new and old. For example there have been shows that feature anime soundtracks, video game music and even mods. (see also mod scene). There is no kind of music that isn't featured on WMTU, or hasn't been at some time in the past.

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