Beginning in the year 1910 and extending over a period of nine years, several student and staff personnel at Purdue University in West Lafayette Indiana experimented with the construction and usage of locally made wireless equipment, though with limited success. These endeavors were under the auspices of the School of Electrical Engineering for which valid degrees were issued.
However during the year 1918, Purdue
University introduced a new class of instruction in radio technology and during
the following year (1919) they applied to and received approval from the
licensing authorities for the installation and operation of a wireless
telegraphy Morse Code station. This new
experimental wireless station was granted an amateur callsign 9YB.
Station 9YB was granted a 2 kW spark
license for operation on 800 kHz and 1500 kHz, both frequencies within what
became the standard mediumwave band.
Their T type center fed antenna was 100 feet high and 100 feet long.
Then three years later, the amateur
Morse Code station morphed into a radio broadcasting station that was granted
the callsign WBAA. The official date for
the inauguration of the new WBAA broadcasting station was April 4, 1922.
The original operating channel for
the new WBAA was the standard nationwide 833 kHz, and this Indiana station was
permitted 250 watts. These days, WBAA
operates with 5 kW on 920 kHz.
According
to the WPA Guide to Indiana, station WBAA is the oldest continuously operating
radio broadcasting station in Indiana.
Another early wireless station was
established by the Dodge Institute at Valparaiso on the edge of suburban
Chicago in the top north western corner of Indiana. Back a hundred years ago, the Dodge Institute
was the largest school of wireless and radio instruction in the United States.
In the latter part of the year 1913,
the Dodge Institute installed a Special Land Station, as they were called in
those days, an experimental Morse Code wireless station with the callsign
9XD. This station was in use for a dozen
years, and it was closed in 1926.
However, give another nearly two
score years, and a new station was installed at Valparaiso; a program
broadcasting station under the callsign WNWI, with the letters NWI standing for
North West Indiana. The new WNWI was
inaugurated on December 31, 1965, the 39th
anniversary to the very day of the official closure of the earlier wireless
station 9XD.
Radio station WNWI began with 250
watts on 1080 kHz. However, after 33
years at Valparaiso, station WNWI was reborn (1998) under the same callsign at
a new location in suburban Chicago, with now 3 kW on the same channel 1080
kHz. Studios are at Oak Lawn, the
transmitter is at Riverdale, and programming is in East European languages.
The
first radio broadcasting station in Indianapolis was established in the
Hamilton Manufacturing Company building at 2011 Alabama Street. This station was launched as 9ZJ on February 2, 1920, and it broadcast the
famous election night results as WLK on November 2, the same night that brought
lasting fame to mediumwave station KDKA in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Station WLK was closed in 1923 and the
equipment was sold during the following year to station KFGZ-WEMC at what is
now Andrews Adventist University at Berrien Springs in Michigan.
The oldest continuously operating
broadcasting station in Indianapolis began life on October 23, 1924 as WFBM
with studios on the fourth floor in the Indianapolis Athletic Club building at
350 North Meridian Street. The original
transmitter was a converted carrier current unit intended for use in
transmitting company messages along the high power electricity lines.
Initially, this WFBM transmitter was
installed in the Harding Street electricity generating plant. They began with 250 watts on 1130 kHz, and
they operate now as WNDE with 5 kW on 1260 kHz.
Radio
station WSBT in South Bend lays claim to being the first commercial radio
broadcasting station in Indiana. They
began life as W9FP in April 1922, and three months later they changed callsign to WGAZ,
standing for World’s Greatest Automobile Zone.
They changed call again in 1925 to WSBT to reflect the station’s
ownership, the South Bend Tribune. These
days station WSBT operates with 5 kW on 960 kHz though on air they promote
their FM outlet on 96.1 MHz which was added
in 2012.
The well known full power 50 kW WOWO
in Fort Wayne was inaugurated upstairs at the Main Auto Supply Company on 213
Main Street with 500 watts on 1320 kHz on March 31, 1925. Their 50 kW transmitter at nearby Roanoke was officially taken
into service on February 1, 1954.
In an unusual move, the owners of
station WLIB in New York bought station WOWO in Fort Wayne in 1954 so that they
could decrease the night time signal from WOWO and increase the night time
signal from WLIB. These days WLIB in New
York operates on 1190 kHz with 10 kW during the day and 30 kW at night, whereas
WOWO Fort Wayne operates also on 1190 kHz with 50 kW during the day and only
9.8 kW at night.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 413)