WBAA


WBAA and WBAA-FM are the call signs for two American radio stations owned by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana—an AM station at 920 kHz and an FM station at 101.3 MHz. Both broadcast from studios in the Edward C. Elliott Hall of Music on the Purdue campus, and the transmitters are located in Lafayette, Indiana.
Both WBAA and WBAA-FM are licensed by the FCC to broadcast in HD.

AM 920

WBAA is the longest continuously-operating radio station in Indiana, having been licensed on April 4, 1922. It was one of several AM stations signed on by Midwestern land-grant schools in the early days of radio. A fire in 1929 took WBAA off the air for several months. Due to its transmitter power and Indiana's flat land, its 5,000-watt daytime signal reaches a potential audience of 2.5 million people, including the fringes of the Indianapolis and Terre Haute areas. A single tower is used during the day, while power is fed to all three towers in a directional pattern at night to protect other stations on the frequency.
AM 920 WBAA airs a mixture of NPR and local news/talk programming during weekdays and weeknights. Starting June 30, 2014, a majority of jazz programming was moved to WBAA Jazz at 101.3FM HD2 and AM 920 started playing the day's NPR reruns and BBC World overnight starting at 11pm. Weekends consist of news programming during the day with locally produced jazz and acoustic music at night.

FM 101.3

WBAA-FM began broadcasting in 1993. It is one of the few NPR stations located on a commercial frequency. The station was assigned the call sign "WBAA-FM" by the Federal Communications Commission on April 19, 1991. WBAA-FM is a Class B1 FM radio station.
FM 101.3, WBAA-FM, simulcasts its AM sister station in the morning and late afternoon to broadcast popular NPR talk programs such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. Classical music can be heard at other times with 6 hours of classical music from Indianapolis-based on weekdays.

FM 105.9 (translator)

In October 2016, WBAA launched a third frequency in Lafayette, W290CM 105.9 FM, to rebroadcast its AM programming on FM. It exists mainly to improve AM 920's nighttime coverage.

Staff

WBAA employs Richard Miles as general manager. The radio station duopoly has a general staff of ten, and employs up to ten Purdue students as interns, selected from the Brian Lamb School of Communications.