Radio station WJHU first appeared in 1946 when it broadcast over loudspeakers during lunch hour.

Proposals were made for the creation of an FM station during the late 1960s, but these focused more on equipment than on programming and met with little success. In 1975, the Chief Engineer resigned and the club drafted a new constitution. During the late 1970s, physical and organizational improvements were added and, in 1979, WJHU-FM went on the air. In addition to news reports and progressive rock, the station broadcast regular shows of comedy, jazz and classical music. In 1985, the University decided to boost the station from 10 watts to 25,000 watts and at the same time take the station away from student control.

In the early 1990s, students founded the alternative on-campus carrier current AM radio station called WHAT radio and later renamed WHSR (standing for Hopkins Student Radio). Like the earlier WJHU-AM, this station transmitted within the dorms, but it also added Levering Hall and the Charles apartments. This effort ended in 2000.

WJHU-FM became the area National Public Radio affiliate, and in the fall of 1998, it added overnight coverage of World Radio Network (WRN). The station and frequency were sold by the university in early 2002 to Your Public Radio Corp., a locally based group of station talk hosts and listeners, and became WYPR.

During the summer of 2002, a group of Hopkins students began a new radio effort, and with the assistance of the Dean of Student Life, established a new internet radio station under the name WJHU. It began broadcasting on 22 April 2003.