The earliest Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document available on line is an “original construction permit” which was granted on June 25, 1979 authorizing construction of a station on 89.7 MHz with 10 watts of power. A License to Cover was granted on March 14, 1980. A “Major Modification” was granted by the FCC on February 28, 1983 but the on line data base does not specify any details. On December 12, 1990 a Construction Permit was granted to change the frequency to 105.3 MHz. Reportedly the Board of Education decided not to pursue this change and the next FCC database entry is a renewal on June 10, 1999 showing the frequency as 89.7 MHz.

In late 1995 WDJW's old transmitter failed for good and the station went off the air. WDJW was faced with deletion since a recent FCC rule change called for automatic deletion of any license that was off the air for one year. WWUH at the University of Hartford offered the BOE a loan of a transmitter in return for use of the WDJW signal when local programming was unavailable. WDJW went back on the air in late 1996. WDJW moved its studios and transmitter to the new high school building in the late 1990s.