What is "wfcr"

WFCR (88.5 MHz) is a non-commercial FM radio station licensed to Amherst, Massachusetts. It serves as the National Public Radio (NPR) network affiliate for Western Massachusetts, including Springfield. The station operates at 13,000 watts ERP from a transmitter on Mount Lincoln in Pelham, Massachusetts 968 feet (295 meters) above average terrain. The University of Massachusetts Amherst holds the license. The station airs NPR news programs during the morning and afternoon drive times and in the early evening. Middays and overnights are devoted to Classical music and Jazz is heard during the later evening hours.

WFCR's broadcasting range extends to Western and Central Massachusetts, Northern Connecticut (including Hartford) as well as parts of Southern Vermont and Southern New Hampshire. WFCR's studios for most of its history were located at Hampshire House on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. However, in 2013, the station moved most of its operations to the Fuller Building in downtown Springfield.

The station signed on May 6, 1961 as a simulcast of WGBH-FM in Boston. However, by 1964, it had expanded its local programming to 17 hours per day. The call letters originally represented "Four College Radio," becoming "Five College Radio" in 1966. It is a charter member of NPR, and was one of the stations that carried the initial broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered.

The station's license is held by UMass, but it receives funding from the Five Colleges (UMass, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College and Hampshire College) as well as from fund drives conducted periodically over the air. WFCR and sister station 640 AM WNNZ call themselves New England Public Radio.

WFCR claims the distinction of being the first radio station in Western Massachusetts to transmit a signal using iBiquity's HD Radio system. It airs two digital streams. The first is a simulcast of the analog signal, the second is a 24-hour classical music station.