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1070 WFNI Silent for now

šŸ˜® I get it, and I am surprised this hasn't happened more before now, but what a shame for a heritage frequency in that or any market to go out in that fashion. I remember I was saddened when WOWO was downgraded many years back, but this is well beyond that even if their current programming is remaining on the FM side.
 
What's interesting is that apparently there's nothing lined up to diplex with. I wouldn't be shocked if that signal never returns as apparently it isn't being listened to. DX possibilities galore though (that opens up 1070 on the Edinburgh IN) SDR)
 
Had the same thought. Can't imagine it'd be easy to just throw up another tower or tower farm somewhere if someone suddenly decides they want to fire up on 1070.
 
This is stunning, even though the area near the towers has built up in the last 10 years. It used to be farmland and a truck stop on the other side of I-65. Driving to Indy from Chicago, the WIBC towers and billboard was the sign I was near the city.
 
tvnut said:
This is stunning, even though the area near the towers has built up in the last 10 years. It used to be farmland and a truck stop on the other side of I-65. Driving to Indy from Chicago, the WIBC towers and billboard was the sign I was near the city.
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I can't count the number of times I've passed that site, shuttling from Ohio to the Lafayette area and trips to Indy when living in Lafayette.
 
radioman148 said:
WIBC was a big station back in the day....
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You could say that about WLS and WGN along with a slew of others. But the apparent complete demise of the Indianapolis 1070 is a biggie. And yep....I've driven by that multi-tower site (with the sign facing I-65) dozens of times.
 
I'm trying to thing of markets that always had as bad an array of AMs as Indianapolis. As that market grew, it expanded beyond the day and night signals of every station.

Phoenix is a little better, as is Houston. It's as if Detroit, Cleveland, Lousiville, Cincy and Chicago took all the good channels first.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I'm trying to thing of markets that always had as bad an array of AMs as Indianapolis. As that market grew, it expanded beyond the day and night signals of every station.
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Even back in the "good ole days," Indy had only 4 full-time Ancient Modulation stations (1070, 1260, 1310, and 1430, all of which started up before WW2) and 4 daytimers (810, 950, 1500, and 1590, all of which started after the war). Those full-timers didn't (and don't) cover the entire market at night, and there were/are few stations in the outlying areas.

Phoenix is a little better, as is Houston. It's as if Detroit, Cleveland, Lousiville, Cincy and Chicago took all the good channels first.
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Phoenix is definitely over-AM'ed, and has been since the late 1950s. Metro Phoenix had 20 stations by 1970, when Indy (a larger market in those days) had 8.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I'm trying to thing of markets that always had as bad an array of AMs as Indianapolis. As that market grew, it expanded beyond the day and night signals of every station.

Phoenix is a little better, as is Houston. It's as if Detroit, Cleveland, Lousiville, Cincy and Chicago took all the good channels first.
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The wealthier northern suburbs were completely excluded from the 1070 signal at night. I remember driving through Noblesville with CHOK blasting and no WIBC. It was a no-brainer to move WIBC to FM. If 2 translators and online are doing just fine without a 50,000/10,000 watt AM, that says a lot.

WNDE-1260 is probably the only signal approaching full market----but that may have been in the 50s. WNAP was early on rock/top 40 starting in 1968. That may have made Indy an "early adopter" for FM.
 
gr8oldies said:
The wealthier northern suburbs were completely excluded from the 1070 signal at night. I remember driving through Noblesville with CHOK blasting and no WIBC. It was a no-brainer to move WIBC to FM. If 2 translators and online are doing just fine without a 50,000/10,000 watt AM, that says a lot.
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AFAIK, the translators are being fed from WIBC-HD2, so they won't be affected when 1070 shuts down. Even if they find another station to diplex with, their days as a 50/10 station are probably over.
gr8oldies said:
WNDE-1260 is probably the only signal approaching full market----but that may have been in the 50s. WNAP was early on rock/top 40 starting in 1968. That may have made Indy an "early adopter" for FM.
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I remember WNAP very well, being from Bloomington and living there during that era. There were more FM stations than AM in those days.
 
I think it's silly to think a 250 watt translator or two makes a full market signal in a larger market especially. In a small market, maybe. It may be too late now, but they should have used the rules Canada used to move AMs to FM full power stations years ago. They could probably be 5000 watts Day nondirectional. But Night would be very restrictive unless it used a DA.
 
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Somebody said 10 kW nondirectional, and seeing the WNWI 1080 5 kW Day application, and WHFB 1060 reducing to 3 kW Day, the only other consideration would be WTSO 1070. Between that and measured conductivities and contours, that could work. The other direction toward CHOK 1070 is already about the equivalent of 10 kW. The rest of the pattern is mainly in excess of 10 kW. Put it somewhere near the center of town.

They could probably STA 12500 Day and 2500 Night nondirectional and get out a couple of years, if they can convince the FCC that they are making progress and it is all beyond their control.

I agree with somebody who said they might be able to put up 2 or three towers nearly in a line to run 250 DA-N. Have to look at some of the other arrays. Too bad Glen Clark and Ron Rackley passed away. I think they could have done it. Anybody know what happened to Glen's multinode computer?
 
DavidEduardo said:
I'm trying to think of markets that always had as bad an array of AMs as Indianapolis. As that market grew, it expanded beyond the day and night signals of every station.

Phoenix is a little better, as is Houston. It's as if Detroit, Cleveland, Lousiville, Cincy and Chicago took all the good channels first.
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That's about what happened. Indianapolis only had a couple of stations by the mid-1920s, and by then, the power chase was well underway. WIBC didn't go on the air until late in 1938 with 1kW daytime, didn't get 50 kW day / 10 kW night until 1950.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I'm trying to thing of markets that always had as bad an array of AMs as Indianapolis. As that market grew, it expanded beyond the day and night signals of every station.
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I'd include Atlanta in your list. Expanding metro, lousy ground conductivity, and just about every major AM either powers down significantly and/or is highly directional at night.

As for Indy....I'd usually stay at the Marriortt North rather frequently on business trips. It was still within city limits. But, I remember thinking that it was hard to imagine that I was in a major U.S. city, based on the lack of strong local AM signals. Of course 1070 was the lone 800-pound gorillia exception.

Atlanta isn't much different. There I'd usually stay in the Dunwoody area about eight miles north of downtown, where WSB and WCNN were pretty much the extent of the available local-quality AM signals.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Somebody said 10 kW nondirectional, and seeing the WNWI 1080 5 kW Day application, and WHFB 1060 reducing to 3 kW Day, the only other consideration would be WTSO 1070. Between that and measured conductivities and contours, that could work. The other direction toward CHOK 1070 is already about the equivalent of 10 kW. The rest of the pattern is mainly in excess of 10 kW. Put it somewhere near the center of town.

They could probably STA 12500 Day and 2500 Night nondirectional and get out a couple of years, if they can convince the FCC that they are making progress and it is all beyond their control.

I agree with somebody who said they might be able to put up 2 or three towers nearly in a line to run 250 DA-N. Have to look at some of the other arrays. Too bad Glen Clark and Ron Rackley passed away. I think they could have done it. Anybody know what happened to Glen's multinode computer?
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I'm thinking most of Indy and the Indy suburbs are NIMBY heaven.
 
KeithE4 said:
Phoenix is definitely over-AM'ed, and has been since the late 1950s. Metro Phoenix had 20 stations by 1970, when Indy (a larger market in those days) had 8.
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But none of them cover the market today, and only two of them did it well back 30 or 40 years before the expansion to the West, North, NE and, particularly, SE.

It's even worse than ABQ which at least has one full signal station, but no others with complete MSA coverage.
 
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