They do, but lately it’s been a dead carrier more often than not. After the upgrade a couple of years ago, the main signal now city grades Fayetteville, so the translator isn’t really needed anymore. That said, as others have pointed out, there are still some signal challenges in the Bentonville/Rogers part of the market.
From what I understand, KISR is likely to continue airing on one of 93.7's HD subchannels. So, it might still feed the translator at 96.1. As you're probably aware, that translator was based on filling in KISR's old signal and covers mostly the south side of Fayetteville. KISR's old signal pretty much covered campus and south. My old apartment was just north of downtown a few blocks away from what's now Fossil Cove Brewing. I could get KISR 93.7 at my apartment on my home stereo, but getting it in the car leaving campus was more iffy, and you could forget picking it up on a handheld device.
Up until the early 1990s, northwest Arkansas was more like an enclave, separate from the rest of the state.
I arrived in January 1994. My first semester was when the Razorbacks won the national championship in basketball. Northwest Arkansas did overall have a different feel than the rest of the state, but, if you pressed anyone from there, they were Arkansan through-and-through. The kids who came to campus from other parts of the state mostly came from smaller towns, though Ft. Smith and Little Rock were well-represented. I never could get adjusted to the outsized influence they had on the university's culture. Growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, I thought I was southern, but, after spending a semester there, I learned I wasn't, especially in southern eyes.
Cable was the primary method to watch network television, and the region shared more in common with Oklahoma, and Missouri than it did Arkansas.
Cable was the primary way to watch network television when I was there, too. KFSM didn't put a signal into Fayetteville or Benton County, but it had two low-power TV stations, one for each. Fox was on LPTV, too. When the NFL moved to Fox, I usually watched the games on KODE 12 out of Joplin. I could get it and KOAM better than I could "KPBI." At the time, KODE ran ABC during primetime and Fox in the overnights, though it switched the schedules during football. KOLR and KYTV out of Springfield were watchable, though with a bit of a snowy picture. The audio on KPOM/KFAA (and I could get both) was so distorted that I often put up with the sub-par picture quality of KY-3. At the time, cable had KOTV and KTUL from Tulsa as well as KARK from Little Rock. I was told it added KOLR 10 and KODE 12 several years after I left while getting rid of KOTV and KARK.
Interstate 540/49 changed a lot of that, as did Wal Mart/Tyson/J.B. Hunt. In the late 1970s, the radio stations that served the region were mostly Class A 3 kW FMs, and daytime-only AMs. KMCK/K-106 was the first to go 100 kW in 1979, followed by new KEZA in the early 1980s.
Walmart and JB were demanding 540 and the US 412 extension that bypassed the small towns between Siloam Springs and Tontitown. The state originally wanted to make 540 a toll road and went as far as to create a turnpike authority in the mid-to-late 90's before ultimately disbanding it. The radio hadn't changed much when I arrived. KKIX had upgraded to a Class C1 shortly before I arrived, and KJEM 95.3 moved to 93.3 and upgraded to a C1 a year or two earlier and became KESE. KISK 101.9, which became KKZQ a couple months after I arrived, had signed on a year or two earlier as a C2. KDAB 94.9 signed on around the same time, and I believe it, too, was a C2. Otherwise, I think most every other FM in the market was still a Class A. With the exception of 790 and 1030, the AM's were still daytimers, though most of them had pre-sunrise and post-sunset authorizations.
I seem to recall that KISR translator existing in 1985, back when commercial FM translators were a rarity.
KISR assembled a large translator network before the rules were changed. At one time, it had translators all over Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Even as late as 1989, I seem to remember it had translators in the Little Rock area and in Hot Springs. It also had one in Broken Arrow, OK outside of Tulsa. I'm not sure if those translators signed off by FCC mandate, or if they were voluntarily surrendered. I can't imagine it made any money off of them. When I lived in Tulsa, I never could hear that translator out of Broken Arrow, which I think was on 101.7. I never could get a reliable signal from KISR 93.7 at my parents' house either because it was about a mile from the fairgrounds, which was where KQLL's translator at 93.5 was. The KISR signal, however, was decent in a car when driving around most of south Tulsa.
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