The station was founded in 1970 by then eighteen year old freshman of the University of Southern Maine Howard Allen. Allen began that station in his dorm room in Anderson Hall on the Gorham campus with a small pirate-radio transmitter, a set of turntables, and his private record collection. At its inception, it was a carrier current station broadcasting under the call sign WGOR. Soon, other students became involved in the station, a club was formed to manage it which was subsequently recognized by the student government, and funded by the student activity fee. The club set up a large antenna on the roof of Anderson Hall which allowed the station's weak signal to reach further into the town of Gorham. Since most radio stations in the 1970s were transmitting on the AM frequency, Allen selected a frequency on the FM frequency, and WGOR began emitting a 100 milliwatt signal on 91.FM.