[4][5] Prior to being a Wisconsin Public Radio transmitter, WVSS was a station programmed by students at the University of Wisconsin–Stout in Menomonie.

[1] The studios were located in what had been the boys' locker room[9] in the basement of the former Central Elementary School,[10][11][1] which the university had previously purchased to convert into a communications center.

[13] The general manager, Arthur "Ace" Matthews, implemented an automated schedule of classical music programming.

This had originally been put in place to help the station meet FCC minimum operating hour requirements; Matthews spent about $6,000 of his own money on a collection of some 540 classical music CDs.

[17] The site change was mutually exclusive with an application by Wisconsin Voice of Christian Youth—owner of WVCY-FM in Milwaukee—for a radio station in Eau Claire,[18] which was ultimately the one approved in December 1995.