shift that raised more than $5,000 for starving Cambodians. In the late 1970s, the station also had trouble keeping itself on the right side of the law: in the days when radio stations needed licensed operators, a shortage of them caused the station to be in violation of FCC rules for 15 hours a week. A report in The Maine Campus, the student newspaper at UMO, was sent to the FCC, leading to a surprise inspection of the station, a reprimand and a temporary cutback in broadcasting. In the 1980s and 1990s, WMEB organized a college hockey rankings poll, having taken it over from WDOM at Providence College in Rhode Island. By the 1990s, WMEB was firmly established as an alternative music outlet with specialty programming in other genres. During the alternative music blocks, DJs played music from three different colored bins, featuring new releases and local artists; moderately successful songs; and popular mainstream artists in the alternative genre. In 1995, the station shut down for five days and removed one student DJ who was dismissed for making provocative racist and homophobic remarks. Transmitter relocations and power increase The original 1962 transmitter was replaced in 1997, at a time when there was concern for the station's future because the University of Maine had dropped its broadcasting major. However, despite already having moved the transmitter, university laboratories were receiving interference from the station; signal leakage into Bennett Hall caused frequency measuring equipment in physics labs to be unable to pick up any other signals. The next year, to rectify the interference issue, WMEB moved to a new and taller tower, which came alongside a slight power increase. The studios moved from the East Annex, where they had been moved initially on a temporary basis in 1981, to the Student Union in 2003. In 2009, the station boosted its power to 10,000 watts from a new transmitter site at the university-owned Witter Farm in Old Town; the increase filled coverage gaps in Bangor and extended coverage. The station suffered a fire at its transmitter site in January 2018, which would keep the station off the air for more than three months until it returned at reduced power in April. References External links MEB-FM MEB-FM Mass media in Penobscot County, Maine University of Maine Radio stations established in 1962 1962 establishments in Maine