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Big and Little Stations (power, not ego)

F

fwmw

If I were a guessing man, I would think that Fort Wayne's WOWO (AM) daytime coverage and Indianapolis' WFBQ (FM) coverage are the two largest in Indiana. I believe if WSTO were located elsewhere, with its ERP, it would cover more of Indiana.

What are the two smallest stations in terms of wattage or coverage in Indiana? I don't want to consider LPFM's in this question.
 
Before you give WFBQ the FM prize, take a look at WTTS 92.3 Bloomington. Their 37000 watts at 1089' might trump WFBQ's 58000 watts at 804'.
 
Per Doug Smith's list at http://www.w9wi.com/articles/grand_fm.htm, WTTS and WFBQ are indeed the only two FMs in Indiana operating with grandfathered facilities greater than standard class B. WTTS is slightly more super than WFBQ, but the difference (5.6 dB over standard class B for 92.3, 4.9 dB for 94.7) is insignificant, especially because grandfathered stations are only protected from interference to standard B contours these days and both WTTS and WFBQ have encroachment fairly close in.

So the question of "which FM gets out best" is an issue not only of raw power but of who has the cleanest allocation, and a few others that come to mind on that account are WSHW 99.7 in Frankfort and WAJI 95.1 in Fort Wayne. WZPL seems to do pretty well, too.

On AM, it's a combination of raw power, antenna efficiency, ground conductivity and dial position. WOWO does OK on the first three, at least. WBAA's day signal deserves some respect, too, as does WIBC's. If you count transmitter location instead of city of license, the daytime coverage champion is almost surely WIND, with its transmitter in Griffith, Indiana.

On the whole, Indiana didn't come out too well in the early battle for good low-dial AM facilities. There's little in the Hoosier State to rival the big daytime reach of a WTVN or a WILL or a WKRC.

Smallest AM coverage? There are a bunch of high-dial daytimers that come to mind - 1510 in Wabash, 1580 in South Bend, 1600 in Linton, 1570 in Auburn. I'm not sure which is the smallest of them all.
 
Scott Fybush said:
On AM, it's a combination of raw power, antenna efficiency, ground conductivity and dial position. WOWO does OK on the first three, at least. WBAA's day signal deserves some respect, too, as does WIBC's.
Click to expand...

You mean WFNI.

Anecdotally, I have gotten much better distance in my reception of 104.5 [in all of its various incarnations over the past 20 years] than either WFBQ or WTTS. I would attribute most of that, however, to the aforementioned encroachment.
 
Scott Fybush said:
So the question of "which FM gets out best" is an issue not only of raw power but of who has the cleanest allocation, and a few others that come to mind on that account are WSHW 99.7 in Frankfort and WAJI 95.1 in Fort Wayne. WZPL seems to do pretty well, too.
Click to expand...
WZPL may do well to the north, but it's not uncommon to hear the Evansville area powerhouse on 99.5 eating at them anywhere south of a Columbus to Shelbyville line. They are side mounted on channel 8's old tower & have a huge null to the south. WSHW gets eaten by WZPL's IBOC hash pretty bad in that WZPL and WSHW are quite shortspaced. 93.1 in Indy has a superb signal, but as you pointed out so well, encroachment reduces their coverage. The 93.1 & 94.7 signals in greater Louisville knock a good 15 miles off of WIBC and WFBQ's listenable coverage area. WFMS 95.5 has been dealt a fairly good hand in the allocation chess game.
 
Living in Corydon, Indiana, my vote for most powerful FM stations would go to WTTS cause I can pick it up more often than not. I usually have to be several miles north of this area before I can pick up the home of "Bob and Tom". Kudos also to WSTO, which comes in here very clearly, though this area seems to be the end of the line for a clear signal. As for AM, my vote would go to whatever 950 is called these days in Indy. 1070 used to be powerful, but WKJK 1080 in Louisville keeps it from coming in clearly here now.

Historically, the old 93.7 and 106.1 (in Columbus) used to come in clearly here, but with new stations in Louisville on 93.9 and 105.9 screwed that up.
 
Can you tell that my perspective on Indiana is almost entirely north of I-70? :D

Yes, it's true that the Louisville and Evansville stations take a bite south of Indy, but WZPL is, at least in my experience, the second-most-regular Indy FM into Fort Wayne after WFBQ. Good point about WFMS having a decently clear channel, too. I don't think I've ever heard 93.1 in Fort Wayne, what with WBTU on 93.3 blasting away. (I'm sure WNDV doesn't help matters any, either.)

Speaking of winning allocations, I'm always amazed when I drive from Fort Wayne to Chicago at how well WZOC gets out on 94.3, especially since it's only a B1 and not even a full B. Not a lot of co-channel stuff to get in the way of that one...

As for WSTO, it's (literally) in a separate class, since it's a Kentucky-based class C signal that enjoys better protection and higher power than any of the Indiana-based Bs. It bears noting that it's theoretically possible to have an Indiana-licensed class C facility - since the class designation is determined by transmitter site and not by state of license, if WIKY (for instance) had been built across the river in Kentucky, it could have been a full C. There's one Ohio-licensed class C in a similar situation - WPAY-FM 104.1 in Portsmouth transmits from across the river in West Virginia.

And KyDXIn, I can see why you're impressed with WXLW's coverage - its 5 kW day signal is all aimed south, so I'd imagine it does quite well down your way. But WXLW throws nothing north (protecting WSBT in South Bend on 960 and the 950s in Chicago and Detroit), so it's not very impressive up my way (when I'm in Indiana, that is.)
 
Scott Fybush said:
Can you tell that my perspective on Indiana is almost entirely north of I-70? :D There's one Ohio-licensed class C in a similar situation - WPAY-FM 104.1 in Portsmouth transmits from across the river in West Virginia.
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And mine is largely south, so between the two of us, we have a handle on this state! Speaking of states, I think WPAY-FM's transmitter is in Kentucky. Another tidbit is that most of the "big" signals in Louisville,KY are across the river in Indiana, making them Class B's. Only WAMZ 97.5 has the 100KW signal, although they don't have substantially better coverage than the Indiana based B's do.
 
I was going to mention the Louisville Bs, come to think of it.

And yes, WPAY-FM is indeed in Kentucky...the WV line is about 25 miles east.
 
I dialed up 94.3 in Evansville and got WULF out of the Lexington area. Its a full C, but I found that pretty impressive.

I've gotten WIKY 104.1 from Evansville in Farmersburg (Terre Haute) and rural Greene County. I've never gotten any of the Indy stations in Evansville, as far as I remember.
 
Scott Fybush said:
Yes, it's true that the Louisville and Evansville stations take a bite south of Indy, but WZPL is, at least in my experience, the second-most-regular Indy FM into Fort Wayne after WFBQ.
Click to expand...

WFBQ isn't heard as much anymore in FW, since WCVM signed on.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I dialed up 94.3 in Evansville and got WULF out of the Lexington area. Its a full C, but I found that pretty impressive.
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WULF 94.3 is actually a C2 (same as an Indiana B) located about 40 miles southwest of Louisville.
 
I have gotten WTTS clean in Warsaw on several occasions. I check it out whenever I am through there to see if it is a fluke of nature (topo, etc). In Columbia City, TTS is almost non-existant, probaly due to WFWI.

WFBQ starts fading out in Marion (I-69 at SR 18). Which leads me to ask:

Since WTTS is in Trafalgar, and can get to Warsaw, (when WFBQ is fuzzy at best),
wouldn't that make WTTS the champ?
 
BobOnTheJob said:
PTBoardOp94 said:
I dialed up 94.3 in Evansville and got WULF out of the Lexington area. Its a full C, but I found that pretty impressive.
Click to expand...
WULF 94.3 is actually a C2 (same as an Indiana B) located about 40 miles southwest of Louisville.
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This station did switch to talk from country music about 5 years ago. Its aim was to serve the Louisville market, and it does have a pretty good signal into the city.

Prior calls for the country music station -- and I'm not making this up-- were WHIC-- which stood for cities in the license area of Hardinsburg, Irvington, and Cloverport, in Breckinridge County.

Terry Meiners used to do a parody of Coyote Calhoun on "Hick" radio--WHIC-- but then changed it to WHIK I guess after learning that there was an actual WHIC radio! Calhoun has been with the award-winning country music station WAMZ for over 30 years.
 
WULF was playing country as of last week.
 
Hoosierky said:
I have gotten WTTS clean in Warsaw on several occasions. I check it out whenever I am through there to see if it is a fluke of nature (topo, etc). In Columbia City, TTS is almost non-existant, probaly due to WFWI.
Click to expand...

The problem you might have in Columbia City getting ANYTHING from about 90.1 to 94MHz is WJHS. The antenna is very low and very close to the center of the county. Bob Thomas did this on purpose if I recall because he couldn't get a tall tower location that would cover Whitley Co. like he wanted. (219 feet according to indianaradio.net...a fine resource if I do say so...) So if/when/by government/court appointed mandate you come through the "MIGHTY" CC and you lose the low end of the dial, blame 91.5 FM. You're welcome. ;D
 
WTTS makes the trip down here to Nashville occasionally. It's the northernmost Indiana station to do so with any regularity.

Evansville 104.1 and 105.3 come in pretty much all the time, and WRAY 98.1 is heard fairly often.

92.5, 96.1, and 99.5 up there are heard quite a bit too, but those are all Kentucky stations in terms of city-of-license, tower site, and class/power. 92.5 is indeed a big pest and is frequently entertainment-quality on a car radio.
 
I can give the northern and eastern perspective, living in the Dayton area now and still making trips into the Hoosier state, and having lived in Lafayette, Logansport and Ft. Wayne. WZPL is my most frequent Indy station, once you're out of the range of the Flyer Radio translator. I've heard WFMS, WKLU, Q95 (even 45 miles away from WSNY, Columbus), WIBC (FM version), WLHK, WJJK and even WKLU. With the right tropo I've even heard WCBK (we're talking car reception, no fancy recieving setups). Normally driving back from Indiana I'll lose most of the Indy stations a little west of Richmond, sometimes right on the border.

My votes for best Indiana coverage: WRSW gets out well, I've heard them here in the Dayton area and beyond several times. Whatever WMRI is called now on 106.9 always had a good signal but has been encroached upon quite a bit, with 106.7s in both West Lafayette and Greenwood, and I'm sure others on 107.1. I still here it frrequently over here. WRZQ at least used to have a strong signal which I had heard everywherfe from Rennselear, IN to south of Cincinnati. I understand they've undergone a downgrade in facilities. WKOA on 105.3 visits here often, they seem to have escaped a ton of encroachment, though I believe I've heard some LPFMs or translators between here and there. Some lower powered stations with surprisingly good coverage include the simulcast partners (WERK/WERK and the Classic Rockers) in Muncie and even 94.3.

I picked up WSTO in Evansville in Logansport once.

AM wise, WFNI is probably the only station that just about covers Indiana's considerable land mass during the day.
 
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