WFDM

[Matlock]

I was in Indy a couple months ago up near the Pyramids and WFDM was coming in fairly well. According to the maps, that's outside even their secondary coverage. It was listenable even to a non-radio geek, namely my wife. Is their signal much better now that it's mono? What kind of cume are they getting? I would imagine they're doing OK 6am-7pm, with not much on the weekends.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

They are shortspaced to WFMS. They are no spaced to WHHH. Their signal can't be heard in the majority of the metro.

 

[MikeStandardsFromIndiana]

I Know WHHH came on after 95.9 came on but im still trying to figure out how Franklin got a class a at 95.9 when you had a Class B WFMS on 95.5 before 95.9 came on.

 

[ten_four]

95.9 signed on in 1961 with a maximum power of 3,000 watts ERP. If I remember correctly, WFMS was a classical music station (Indiana's first in Stereo.) FM listenership was nominal in 1961, so I would think short spacing was not as much of a concern since the signal was meant to serve the Franklin area and not Indianapolis.

 

[perenoel6218]

Just to add a bit of history concerning the early days of WFMS. If my memory serves
me correctly, Martin Williams founded the station. It may have been primarily classical
at first but when I can remember listening to it in the mid and late sixties and then
later actually working there for a very brief time, the station aired one complete side
of an album...vinyl...usually stuff from Perry Como, the Melanchrino Strings, Percy Faith,
Ray Coniff....that sort of stuff. Moreover, I think there was an hour or so in the evening
of a classical orchestra broadcast.

Being a board operator there was rather frustrating. There was NO live microphone in
the control room. All announces were on 3 inch tape reels....not even carts back then, or
Mr. Williams did not invest in any.

Also to the operator's left was the turntable for the on-air LP, and to the right was the
turntable which supplied music for the subcarrier subscription music service. If you as
an operator found the on-air music a bit boring and drifted off with the needle 'fuh-thumping" away that went unnoticed, but man oh man, if the subscription LP went into
the center of the record all sorts of alarms went off! I guess we can discern where
Martin got most of his income in those days, huh?

That was when the station was operating out of the Antlers Hotel. Eventually it
moved to the new studios.....NINETY FIVE FIVE....W F M S stereo...Indianapolis, from
the Hawthorn Radio Center....or something like that at the top of the hour.

Great call letters!!!
End of history lesson for today.
(please check out www.919witt.org and perhaps you have a few bucks to send to
get this new non-comm on the air and sounding great )

 

[Steppenwolf]

I was in Indy a couple months ago up near the Pyramids and WFDM was coming in fairly well. What kind of cume are they getting? I would imagine they're doing OK 6am-7pm, with not much on the weekends.

I would imagine they're not getting much at ANY time. No one's heard of them.

 

[bigtime]

They do fairly well for a station nobody's herard of. With their lame signal WFDM has about the same audience level as the much better signalled WRWM 93.9.

 

[kd8hho]

i can just barely pick up WFDM up in anderson. if i move the antenna just right lol..

 

[media1170]

WFDM is co-channel to a station licensed to Roann up near Peru but with a transmitter south of Wabash. The Indy northside is very choppy for WFDM. Too bad in as much as they have some very good programs.

Don't think WFDM has much room to move north cover to Indy.

 

[speakerman]

They do fairly well for a station nobody's herard of. With their lame signal WFDM has about the same audience level as the much better signalled WRWM 93.9.

That is because they have a popular format that apparently 93.9 made a mistake giving up. I can get them on my old 1979 model SuperRadio on the far North side of town reasonably well. I can also listen to their stream on my Treo 650 wherever I can get a Sprint signal.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

They do fairly well for a station nobody's herard of. With their lame signal WFDM has about the same audience level as the much better signalled WRWM 93.9.

That is because they have a popular format that apparently 93.9 made a mistake giving up. I can get them on my old 1979 model SuperRadio on the far North side of town reasonably well. I can also listen to their stream on my Treo 650 wherever I can get a Sprint signal.

The $64,000 question...who has poorer coverage? Sprint or WFDM? At least you don't have to be with 2 miles of an Interstate highway to hear WFDM...

 

[kd8hho]

They do fairly well for a station nobody's herard of. With their lame signal WFDM has about the same audience level as the much better signalled WRWM 93.9.

That is because they have a popular format that apparently 93.9 made a mistake giving up. I can get them on my old 1979 model SuperRadio on the far North side of town reasonably well. I can also listen to their stream on my Treo 650 wherever I can get a Sprint signal.

The $64,000 question...who has poorer coverage? Sprint or WFDM? At least you don't have to be with 2 miles of an Interstate highway to hear WFDM...

sprint has coverage your kidding me

 

[bigtime]

People are willing to put up with a signal that's hardly there when that signal carries something they want to hear.

 

[ten_four]

WFDM is co-channel to a station licensed to Roann up near Peru but with a transmitter south of Wabash. Don't think WFDM has much room to move north cover to Indy.

I think you're confusing stations. WARU Roann/Peru is at 101.9, the same as WKLU Brownsburg/Indianapolis.

 

[speakerman]

They do fairly well for a station nobody's herard of. With their lame signal WFDM has about the same audience level as the much better signalled WRWM 93.9.

That is because they have a popular format that apparently 93.9 made a mistake giving up. I can get them on my old 1979 model SuperRadio on the far North side of town reasonably well. I can also listen to their stream on my Treo 650 wherever I can get a Sprint signal.

The $64,000 question...who has poorer coverage? Sprint or WFDM? At least you don't have to be with 2 miles of an Interstate highway to hear WFDM...

Yea, Sprint coverage is rather lacking once you leave the main hyway system. Fortunately I don't wander into the boonies that often so it has not been a problem except in big concrete/steel buildings. The iPhone looks like a great upgrade from my dated Treo however the pricetag per month is much higher.

It's too bad all FM radios don't have a mono/stereo switch as the talk format does not justify stereo and the s/n ratio is a lot better with mono.

 

[media1170]

Sorry for the Roann/Wabash confusion. Used to live up in that area and thought I heard the Roann ID on 95.9. I know WARU-FM used to be on 98.3 (co-channel to Plainfield). WARU-FM Roann on 101.9 is northeast of Peru.

Guess when they moved WARU-FM to 98.5 and changed the call letters, Kokomo was more inviting. WKUZ is south of Wabash.

Roann used to be a 4 way yellow flasher, probably still is.

All trying to serve the thriving Quad-Cities triangle: Peru/Wabash/Huntington/Marion/North Manchester.

Kokomo is, well, Kokomo.

Used to be only 1 station station up in that apart of Indiana. WARU (AM) for Wabash/Peru

Marion was Marion, Kokomo was Kokomo and I don't thing any one cared too much about Huntington or Logansport who had their own local stations.

Oops, used the L word. Sorry for the slip. I know, local radio is now, well, not so local like in the OLD days when it was community radio.

Remember WARY doing remotes from the lobby of the Car Bob restaurant on the west side of Peru next to the railroad tracks. I think the location is now a Wendy's. WARU is still on the east side of town, so some thing don't change.

 

[kd8hho]

WKUZ-FM 95.9 MHz up in wabash is the co-chan