WWUH first went on the air 57 years ago, and General Manager John Ramsey has been involved with the station for 56 of those years.
The radio home of the University of Hartford began operations in July 1968. The following year, Ramsey, then in his mid-teens, took a tour of the studio, thanks to his dad, who recognized his son’s interest in radio. The rest is history.
“I was fascinated by seeing a real radio station,” Ramsey recalls. “After that, through a neighbor who was a UHart student and WWUH volunteer, I was able to join the staff as a volunteer myself. Station management was desperate for someone to cover the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shifts that no one else wanted to take. That was me!"
Like WWUH, Ramsey calls West Hartford home—but even if he lived miles away, he’d still be able to hear the station for two reasons. First, its powerful broadcast tower on Avon Mountain allows its signal to potentially reach about a million listeners across the state and into parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Second, people can listen from anywhere online using one of two streaming apps on any internet-connected device.
Although the station can be heard around the world, Ramsey takes pride in how well it serves the campus and local community. “I believe our success over the years is due to our commitment to being live and our dedication to the greater Hartford region,” he says. He credits the University for supporting all his initiatives, which have facilitated this growth. “The support UHart has given WWUH has enabled us to evolve from a simple student group to a nationally recognized community service organization known for outstanding programming and a local focus.”
Ramsey, who began as a teenage technician and substitute host reporting to older and more experienced individuals, now supervises over 60 students, faculty members, and community volunteers. With programming that includes nearly every genre of music, national and international news, historical reviews, cultural discussions, and more, WWUH is one of the most engaging and effective non-commercial university radio stations in the nation, largely thanks to Ramsey’s leadership.
However, it wasn’t a passion for business or management that started him on this journey 56 years ago—it was his love of music. Music has provided the soundtrack of his life from a very young age. His technical interest began the moment he stepped inside the studio, and his management skills developed naturally from his desire to help others reach their fullest potential.
He hosted two shows a week from 1971 to 1975 and assisted with engineering whenever needed. He received his FCC first-class broadcast license in 1977, further solidifying his role as a constant presence at WWUH—while also freelancing as a consultant at Hartford stations WCCC, WDRC, WKSS, and WJMJ. He even spent a few years helping rock bands with their audio needs, though these freelance gigs typically took a back seat to his commitment to UHart radio.
By 1978, he was a volunteer chief engineer at WWUH, and he became paid general manager in 1986.
Since then, the advances he has overseen have been significant, including the assembly of an extensive music library of more than 140,000 long-playing albums and compact discs—one of the largest in the country. He also developed and maintains an inclusive website on the history of Hartford radio (hartfordradiohistory.com) and is author of the book Hartford Radio (part of the Images of America series, Arcadia Publishing, 2012).
Another source of pride for Ramsey, which also reflects his effectiveness as a manager, is the number of WWUH student volunteers who have gone on to successful careers in broadcasting. “One of our announcers became a top program director in New York City, another became the number one disc jockey in Dallas, and others have pursued highly productive careers at CBS, ESPN, WTIC, and many other media outlets,” Ramsey shares, adding that he keeps in touch with many of them.
Of course, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. In 1978, he spent more than three days at the station with two students during a blizzard that prompted Governor Ella Grasso to close roads throughout the state. Keeping the station on the air during that time helped provide valuable emergency information to the community. “We had been live on a 24/7 basis since the early 1970s and had always managed to stay on air because of our volunteers, even during severe weather. Sometimes they would camp out at the station for hours, or even days, to keep the programming going.”
As challenging as that was, the biggest threat the station ever faced was the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020 and led to a campus shutdown. Almost as if anticipating it, in 2019, Ramsey convinced the administration to invest in program-automation equipment that would allow WWUH to remain on air even with no one physically present at the station. “The campus had to shut down,” he says, “but the new automation allowed us to stay on air. Within a few weeks, more than half of our volunteers were producing programming from their homes, which we were able to broadcast.”
Ramsey holds his station staff and volunteers in the highest regard, which is why he is so proud of their contributions to WWUH’s professional recognition. For two consecutive years, he accepted awards on behalf of the station from the Connecticut Broadcasters Association at its annual ceremony—in 2025 for Best College Radio Programming and the previous year for Best Non-Commercial Station.
Accolades like these further validate Ramsey’s talent for guiding student volunteers to develop professional-level skills. However, this can sometimes be a bittersweet compliment, as there are fewer jobs in radio today than ever before due to increased automation. Furthermore, he explains, the corporate consolidations of recent years have resulted in multiple radio stations being run by a few huge corporations, a trend that can undermine the independence, flexibility, and creativity that characterize working in radio.
Still, under Ramsey’s leadership, WWUH remains independent, progressive, and inclusive, relatively immune from the corporate issues that often plague commercial and public radio, thereby preserving the personality, heart, and soul that make it so special. In fact, harkening back to his earliest days on campus, Ramsey can still be heard on air from time to time as the voice of public service announcements (which he also produces). But even during the bulk of programming when his voice is not heard, his presence is felt—loud and clear.
Watch for more profiles throughout the fall about dedicated members of our campus community who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make UHart a special place.