How is listening to college radio like eating Brussels sprouts?

If you ask WUVT's veteran jazz director, librarian, deejay and Local Zone producer -- that's all one guy, Len Comaratta -- he'll tell you that it's not, really, except that it may take some getting used to. That and hip people dig it.

WUVT, best found at 90.7 FM, was started as early as 1943 as a kind of jazz-playing pirate station run by VPI cadets. Today, with 80 DJs, three-quarters of whom are students, the station continues to broadcast noncommercial programming with a mission: to promote and educate.

What kind of music can you hear on WUVT?

Len Comaratta: Pretty much everything, really -- Americana, free-form, jazz, classical, hip hop. Late at night you get the real weird music hours. ... We also have a children's program that's been on for almost 20 years on Saturday mornings, and we have news and a sports talk program on Sunday afternoons.

Who listens to WUVT?

LC: A lot of high school kids pick up on WUVT early, and it helps that WUVT interacts with the scene so that when these kids grow up ... they're already well aware of what WUVT is about. Faculty listen. I think there are far more community listeners than students ... I think the problem is that a lot of students are conditioned on MTV, so when they hear that WUVT is not MTV they turn it away. A lot of kids are afraid of what jazz is all about -- the "I don't like Brussels sprouts because I haven't tried them" problem. ... Really, though, all walks of life listen in. We have Michael and Hazel from Craig County who call many times a week, who have been listening ... for 40-odd years. They're some of the biggest listeners of WUVT. They live on top of a mountain, and the radio waves bounce off the mountains perfectly into their living room. Where everything else is interfered with, they get us beautifully. Is that a sign or what?

Who supports WUVT financially?

LC: The same people who listen. We had a fundraiser a few weeks ago ... and we ended up raising a record $9,400 dollars. ... People donate from everywhere, and you can now pledge online. Faculty and students give. ... The university gives us limited funding and space and power, but the majority of funding comes from the community in town and the county.

What kind of freedom does a college radio DJ have compared to a mainstream radio DJ?

LC: Commercial radio isn't meant to sell music anymore; it's just breaks between advertising. I have a friend in one of the big stations up in Baltimore, and he's got a playlist in front of him, a script that keeps rolling onto the next DJ when he's done. He told me six or seven years ago, and it's probably even worse now, that he got 10 minutes every two to three hours that he could play what he wanted.

At WUVT there's two things that control us. The mission statement is one. ... We promote artists that are underground, that need our help, that are desperately talented but underappreciated. Second is the FCC: We can't have songs that swear left and right. Between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. are the safe harbor hours where stringency is lessened ... and a good DJ can mix in the original dirty song over the edited clean song right at 10 o'clock.

How does WUVT involve itself in the local music scene?

LC: We have musicians in the scene who work at WUVT. We invite musicians to play live on the air every week on the Local Zone. We sponsor and promote shows in the area. ... Local bands drop off their CDs to WUVT as soon as they get them done -- even if we don't dig it we'll play it. I give these kids more credit than they sometimes give themselves, I think, when it comes to putting stuff on the air. Not everybody is a prodigy, and you have to start off bad before you can get good.

Rock 'n' roll's been done, and it takes a long time to be able to do it new and fresh and good. ... This gives them a chance to get on the air and get some experience.