WOI (640

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

) – branded ''Iowa Public Radio'' – is a

non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...

AM radio station licensed to

Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines in central Iowa. It is the home of Iowa State University (ISU). According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Ames ha ...

, and serving the

Des Moines metropolitan area The Des Moines metropolitan area, officially known as the Des Moines–West Des Moines, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is located at the confluence of the Des Moines River and the Raccoon River. Des Moines serves as the capital and larges ...

. Owned by

Iowa Public Radio Iowa Public Radio is a public radio network in the U.S. state of Iowa that combines the operations of most National Public Radio member stations in the state. Its three program streams air programming from NPR, Public Radio Exchange and Ameri ...

, it is a listener-supported

public radio Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

station airing a news and talk format. WOI is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...

for Iowa Public Radio's News Network, affiliated with

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...

and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

. Its transmitter is located at a two-

tower array A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower ...

off Zumwalt Station Road near Y Avenue, southwest of Ames.Radio-Locator.com/WOI-AM
/ref> By day, WOI is powered at 5,000 watts using a single

non-directional antenna In radio communication, an omnidirectional antenna is a class of antenna which radiates equal radio power in all directions perpendicular to an axis (azimuthal directions), with power varying with angle to the axis (elevation angle), declining t ...

. Due to its low transmitting frequency and Iowa's flat land (with near-perfect ground conductivity), its daytime footprint is equivalent to that of a full-power FM station, providing at least secondary coverage to almost all of Iowa-as far east as

Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids is a city in Linn County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in u ...

and as far west as

Sioux City Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Iowa. The county seat of Woodbury County, Sioux City is the primar ...

. Its secondary signal also covers portions of

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

and

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

. Its daytime coverage area is similar to that of central Iowa's most powerful AM station, 50,000-watt

WHO The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 6 regional offices and 15 ...

. As

640 AM 640 AM - The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 640 kHz: 640 AM is a North American clear-channel frequency. KFI in Los Angeles, California, KYUK in Bethel, Alaska, and CBN in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, share Class ...

is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A KFI in Los Angeles, WOI reduces power at night to 1,000 watts, with power fed to both towers in a directional pattern that pushes the signal to the east, concentrating it in the Des Moines and Ames areas. Programming is also heard on 250-watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

K284CN at 104.7

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

.Radio-Locator.com/K284CN
/ref> Historically, WOI is one of the oldest radio stations in the United States, having begun experimental transmissions in 1911.

History

Historical broadcasts

The history of WOI can be traced back to 1911. "Dad" Hoffman, a physics professor at what was then Iowa State College, installed a transmission line between the Campus Water Tower and the Engineering Building and set up a wireless

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

station. By 1913, this was known as experimental station 9YI and it was sending and receiving weather reports by

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

on a regular basis. The first sound broadcast was an hour of concert music on November 21, 1921. The Commerce Department issued a full radio license to WOI in April 1922. The first regular broadcast took place on April 28, 1922. The original call sign 9YI is now W0YI and is retained by the ISU Campus Radio Club, with the

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...

station in the Electrical Engineering building. WOI may be the oldest fully licensed non-commercial station west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. Sister station

WSUI WSUI (910 AM) is a public radio station in Iowa City, Iowa. It is owned by Iowa Public Radio, Inc. and is a member of Iowa Public Radio's news network. Its signal serves most of eastern Iowa. WSUI is one of two National Public Radio member sta ...

, founded by the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

Iowa City Iowa City is the largest city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. At the time of the 2020 census the population was 74,828, making it the state's fifth-most populous city. The Iowa City metropolitan area, which enc ...

, also began telegraph transmissions in 1911 and also has claims to being the earliest educational station west of the Mississippi. Other Midwestern universities also started stations in the 1910s: the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

KUOM KUOM (770 AM) – branded ''Radio K - Real College Radio'' – is a daytime-only, non-commercial, college radio station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Owned by the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, the station is operated by studen ...

in 1912, St. Louis University's

WEW WEW (770 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio station in St. Louis, Missouri. Owned by Birach Broadcasting Corporation, its studios are on Hampton Avenue in St. Louis. First licensed in March 1922, WEW is one of the oldest radio stati ...

also in 1912 and the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

's WHA in 1915.

Farm reports and sports

The first regular programming on WOI was farm market reports gathered by ticker tape and Morse code, broadcast throughout the state. Another early staple was sporting events by Iowa State's athletic teams. In 1925, "The Music Shop" aired for the first time. One of the longest-running programs in the history of radio, it moved to WOI-FM in the 1970s before going off the air in 2006. In 1927. another longtime favorite, "The Book Club" was added; it also aired until 2006. On December 1, 1949, Iowa State launched an FM

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

, WOI-FM at 90.1 MHz.

WOI-TV WOI-DT (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Ames, Iowa, United States, serving the Des Moines area as an affiliate of American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside The CW, CW affiliate KCWI-TV (channel 23), ...

was subsequently launched in 1950 as the first television station in central Iowa. It was also the first commercial TV station owned by an educational institution. It was affiliated with all four networks at the time:

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

, ABC and the DuMont Network. WOI-TV became solely an ABC affiliate in 1955. The television station was sold by the Iowa Board of Regents on March 1, 1994; it is now owned by

Tegna Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publi ...

NPR affiliate

WOI-AM-FM became a charter member of

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

(NPR) when it began its regular schedule of afternoon news program ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'' in 1971. Today WOI's programming consists of both NPR and locally produced talk shows along with local news reports and

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

news updates. The

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

of the early years migrated exclusively to 90.1 WOI-FM in the 1960s. When the radio services of Iowa's state universities were merged into

in 2004, WOI became the flagship of IPR's Operations and IT services. WOI IowaPublicRadio logo

FM translator

References

External links

*
Iowa Public Radio – IPR News

Spark to Voice
- History of 9YI and early WOI {{Authority control μ Radio stations established in 1922 NPR member stations 1922 establishments in Iowa News and talk radio stations in the United States