Network to Wire Yard Halls Soon; First Broadcast to Houses Monday

The Harvard Radio Network's return to the air this year has more than the usual incidental significance to Freshmen, because the station's long awaited wiring of the Yard is about to be consummated.

Within a week or two Yardlings will get their first chance to hear the College's only radio station since the Network began broadcasting over the Yard Steam heating pipes in 1941--an experiment that lasted only three weeks.

Since then it has filled the ether with music, classical and otherwise, dramatic productions, and lectures by prominent professors and visitors on week nights throughout the College year, using the electrical system as a transmitting medium.

WHCN Now WHRV

When the station sends out its first program of the year on Monday evening at 7:30 o'clock from its Dudley Hall studio, it will be operating under the same management but under a new name. Last spring the board rang out the name Harvard Crimson Network (WHCN) and rang in the Harvard Radio Network (WHRV). The reason offered for this change was that confusion resulted between their name and that of the CRIMSON.

The new call letters do not stand for Harvard Radio Voice, as some students had assumed. Networkers claim the R and the V have no significance whatsoever.

Fifty members make up the Network staff, which is divided into three boards--business, production, and technical. Competitions for all boards are open to Freshmen three times a year, the first one opening in a few weeks.

Broadeasts begin Monday through Friday evenings at 7:30 o'clock and continue until 12. In addition, there are cocktail hour music programs on Saturdays during the football season. Last year the radio ran continuous 24 hour jazz orgies during reading period and rented a special wire to bring the Dartmouth football game from Hanover for the benefit of the stay-at-homes in Cambridge.

"Armchair Audit" Popular

Most widely hailed innovation last year was the addition of a program called "Armchair Audit" in which the top professors in the University gave condensed survey lectures on their respective fields. The feature will be continued this year but no definite programs have yet been planned.

Under the present technical arrangements, in which the programs ultimately arrive in the student rooms by way of the electric wiring system, the Houses and Stillman Infirmary are the limits of broadcast reception. In Stillman there is a "Hushatone" loudspeaker plugged in by each bed.

When the Yard wiring is completed the potential audience will be increased by 25 percent and the Network feels that this will have the added advantage of giving new students the habit of listening in.