Before there was OutCasting, there was WDFH — the only public radio station in the northern suburbs of NYC.  Following decades of work beginning in 1973 (and even before, if you want to get technical), WDFH signed on as an FM station in 1995 and signed off in 2013.  (It had started broadcasting as Part 15 station in 1968 and then, starting in 1982, as a cable radio station while the work to secure an FM license proceeded).

The station was the life's work of its founder, Marc Sophos — or at least that's what he thought until he established OutCasting as a local program on WDFH in 2011 and then arranged for it to be transformed into a national program as WDFH was going off the air.

We stopped updating the old WDFH site after the 2013 sign-off, but you can view it here.

Most of the history of WDFH was dominated by nearly insurmountable challenges, including the loss of our studio space (twice), the loss of our original transmitter site less than 16 months after we went on the air, and securing FCC approval in the first place, which took nearly 20 years.  If Marc had been born 10 years earlier, WDFH would probably have had a much stronger signal, but by 1973, the FM dial in the New York area was already saturated with other signals, and even after all those years of delay, shoe-horning a new FM signal onto the crowded FM dial required enormous compromises.

Our final expansion effort began in 2001 and was completed in 2009; it enabled us to reach some 400,000 potential listeners, but that was not enough in a media market of about 14 million.  Here's a video of that final signal expansion.

Here are some other videos from the WDFH years.

WDFH's 2004 political coverage

In performance at WDFH

For the best audio quality, please visit the WDFH music page

In performance at WDFH.

Giant Cicada

Matt Turk — Broadway

Matt Turk — Stranger

Abbie Gardner — Hope

Aztec Two Step — Shantytown

Hope Machine — Black Hills

Other in-studio musical guests