Tamara Grbusic::  You can start whenever you'd like.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  My name is Babak Armajani. People here know me as Armi, and I’m class of ’68. I think there was an awful lot going on here at that time. What’s your impression of what was going on here at that time?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  I don’t really know much about it but I heard many interesting things.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Like?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Like, that students started self-governing themselves more, that some restrictions that the college imposed on students at that time was abolished.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Yeah, there was a lot of turmoil. But, the story that I wanted to tell was about the founding of KDIC. Is KDIC still around?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Yup.
Babak Armajani::  And that happened- the original idea arose as a prank among some of my friends in Smith Hall when somebody got a hundred milliwatt oscillator, which is a very, very weak AM signal transmitter. We started playing around with it and we hooked it up to a record player and found that that worked. We found that when we plugged it into the electrical system at Smith, most of the rooms in the dorm would pick up the signal on a low, I think it was 680 or something like that, on a low AM frequency.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  So, we took over a closet that was a janitorial closet and we set up like a little sound booth in there. And we had a record player and a transmitter, and whenever anybody wanted to they went in there and broadcast, and people had their radios tuned in. And... you know, it was just kind of a fun thing to do. But, the S&B, is the S&B still around?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Yes it is.
Babak Armajani::  The S&B at that time was more critical of the changes that were going on and the students that were advocating the changes, like, ending the segregation of men and women and ending women’s hours and stuff like that, that we had back then. And... so, some of us who wanted another voice that would be more supportive looked to an option for that kind of expression, because it wasn’t coming through the S&B, at the time. So, the idea, based on this closet thing in Smith was, well, why don’t we start a radio station?
Babak Armajani::  So, I went to the administration, ultimately to President Leggett, and proposed that we have a radio station. Their response was, “Absolutely not.” There was a station, an AM station at Grinnell. It was KGERL, I think, or KHERW, back in the fifties, and they hooked their antenna up to the railroad tracks in order to get a stronger signal. That jammed a station in St. Louis that was on the same frequency. This is true. So, the FCC came and the College was embarrassed and they had to shut it down. They didn’t want to have anything to do with- it was a bad experience. They didn’t want to have anything to do with it. We said, “Well, this is gonna be FM and it’s gonna be high quality,” and no, they didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
Babak Armajani::  So, there was already a pre-existing, adversarial relationship with the administration, and we were young and foolish and quick to act on our own when the College wouldn’t respond. So, a guy named Mike Fellinger who was a physics major drafted engineering plans for a real radio, y’know, with what kind of equipment, for a real radio booth. And other people started collecting music and people in the drama department started thinking about Radio Theater, and wouldn’t it be fun to do something different to radio and started working on Radio Theater. This was in the spring of ’66 which was my sophomore year.
Babak Armajani::  And then, in our junior year, my junior year, we started pursuing this in earnest and lots of people got involved, and decided we should have news – and not just Grinnell news but national news, and how do we get national news? And the prospects of cost, you know, kept building up as the vision became grander, and it was kind of like a club. I mean, there were meetings and there were different departments and there were people working on things but there was no radio station, nor was there any real opportunity for there to be a radio station. So, we decided we needed to raise money and we decided we needed $3,000. And-
Tamara Grbusic & Babak Armajani::  Why $3,000?
Tamara Grbusic & Babak Armajani::  Well, because we added up everything. We needed a teletype machine and we needed some of this equipment, and you know back then $3,000 went a lot further. Plus we didn’t know what we were doing, as it turned out. But, we thought we needed $3,000. And so we thought, well, maybe some alums would…
Tamara Grbusic & Babak Armajani::  Help you out?
Tamara Grbusic & Babak Armajani::  Help us out. So we... we talked to Mr. Lambie, who was the Development Director… "No." He was a very nice guy, wonderful gentlemen and he was much less abrupt. But, the answer was no.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  So then- Am I- is this too long?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  No, no, no. It's fine. You have time to talk.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  So- so... Are you being entertained?
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  Yeah!
Babak Armajani::  So then, we broke into the library at night, and- which was very easy to do then - and the Development Office was in the basement of the library. We went down there to find a list of the big donors, of the big alumni donors, with the idea that we had all these people that were working on this, who were working together on a plan, and that we would send this plan, and somebody would generously come forward with the money for this worthy cause and fund the radio station.
Babak Armajani::  So we got this list. There were about... fifty names on it. We finished up the plan. It was fifty pages and it was, y’know, by our standards, it was a polished document with the- everything from engineering to radio drama to news to music, etc. So, we had the names and addresses and we sat in the Smith Lounge and stuffed manila envelopes with these plans and with a letter to each of these people. We didn’t hear anything. And- that would’ve been in the fall of ’67... and didn’t hear- didn't hear anything.
Babak Armajani::  And then, one day I got a letter from Fairchild Semiconductor, and said, “Oh, what’s that?” It was from this guy, and he said he had seen the plans and it looked interesting. It looked like a good idea, but our engineering was all wrong and this and that. We should do this and that, and so forth. So, you know, call, so I called him and I talked to him and he told me more, and he kind of got engaged in it.
Babak Armajani::  He said, “Well, I can’t send you guys $3,000, you know, 'cause who- you’re not a 501 c 3, or- You know. I can’t just give you money. Maybe I could give it to the College but I haven’t given to the College because I was estranged from the College and you need an FCC license and that’s gonna take a long time, and blah blah blah.” But he said, “But here’s what I’ll do so that you could get some action going at the College. I’ll send you the- I’ll send the equipment to you.”
Babak Armajani::  And so... and this guy’s name was Robert Noyce, whose nephew and grandnephew I just saw moments ago. And so- and the list that we had gotten was not a list of donors. It was a list of people that they thought should be donors but weren’t, you know, that they were trying to hustle. And so- I didn’t know who Robert Noyce was, and I didn’t know what Fairchild Semiconductor was or anything like that, back then. So, then boxes started arriving. Big boxes started arriving at the post office down here. And Ernie the postman, who was a character, a wonderful interaction with students, kept saying, “Oh, you got another box.”
Babak Armajani::  And so we started putting the boxes in.. all over in Smith because we had no place to secure them- and in these boxes was brand new, incredible equipment like, Crown tape decks which are like the cream of recording technology back then and a big control board, y’know, a master control board, and transmitter and all this stuff, and it was all coming from Fairchild. And it- but, we had no radio stations or license or a place to put it or anything.
Babak Armajani::  So then, as Noyce had suggested, I went then to President Leggett again and I told him about this. And I said, “Y'know, we got this guy and he’s,” I didn’t tell him about stealing the list or anything, but, “and he’s interested and he’s sending us this stuff.” And he said, “Really? Oh, let me look into it.” He went and he talked to Ernie, because Ernie told me, and so then he knew it was real. Then he wanted to see it and then we showed all the stuff to him.
Babak Armajani::  So he said, “Who’d you get?” and I said, “I got it from this guy at Fairchild Semiconductor.” Of course, he knew who it was. He said, “Oh, is that Bob Noyce?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Oh, well we’ve been trying to interest him and he has had no interest in the college,” and, y'know, at that time. So, they were- and then they got Mr. Lambie and Mr. Lambie came and took- of course, he was real interested from a development point of view. And so, suddenly there was a thawing of the relationship and there was, “Well, we can, maybe we can find a place, and we could put a station in if we can get the license,” and all that stuff.
Babak Armajani::  So then we started in earnest. And we applied for, and we got the license about a year later. And they found a spot for us in an upper level of Darby Gym, which used to be where the Rosenfield Center is. It was an out-of-the-way place, let’s put it that way. But, it was really nice, and they built it out and there were big cabinets for all the records, which was the medium that we used back then. We got, there was an antenna that was erected right next to Darby Gym, and we got the FCC license.
Babak Armajani::  And... Bob Noyce was our benefactor and godfather, and kind of advisor, and he came through one time on his Learjet. He lived in California and he was going to New York for something, and he called and he said, “I’m gonna stop at Grinnell. Come out to the airport.” So I went out to the airport, this jet comes down. We shook hands, gave him a little update on what was happening, and of course I was instructed from the President and the Development Director to give him all these messages and tell him about the College’s capital improvement plan, you know, that kind of stuff. So I dutifully did that. And later, it resulted I think in part in him getting interested in Grinnell and the rest of that is history.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  But anyway, we went on the air in the spring of my senior year. That was the beginning of KDIC.
Babak Armajani & Tamara Grbusic::  That’s a pretty interesting story. Thank you.
