WFHB History

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station; a continuing series. In the spring of 1979, a sophomore transfer from the University of North Carolina arrived on Bloomington’s Indiana University campus. By and by, he’d catch wind of the effort to start a community radio station in town. He was a musician, a saxophone player. His name was Brian Kearney. He …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station; a continuing series. Despite running into the Channel 6 brick wall — powerful WRTV TV Ch. 6 in Indianapolis controlled a lane of the broadcast spectrum uncomfortably close to the noncommercial frequency Jeffrey Morris hoped to secure for the planned Bloomington community radio station — the folks who supported the Community Radio Project …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station; a continuing series. Every radio station needs a frequency. That is, a lane on the electromagnetic spectrum where its signal — the stuff you’ll actually hear on your radio — can travel. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) acts as a traffic cop, directing each radio and TV station to an assigned lane, its …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station, a continuing series. The motley crew hoping to start a community radio station in Bloomington almost perfectly represented the mid-1970s subculture. The original idea people, Mark Hood and Jeffrey Morris, along with eager WQAX veterans Jim Manion, Richard Fish, Robyn Carey, and Nick Brubaker, could, many of them, be described as late-age-hippies. Manion, …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station, a continuing series. In the summer of 1975, Mark Hood and Jeffrey Morris had a few hundred dollars in a bank account. Knowing nothing about the process at first, at least they’d learned they needed money to start their community radio station. Morris went to the Monroe County Public Library and looked up …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station, a continuing series. In September 2021, WFHB hired its first development director, Brooke Turpin. She’d spent a few years doing a similar job at KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her career path led her from the grandmama of all U.S. community radio stations to Bloomington’s first and only such station Quaker …

The history of Bloomington’s community radio station; a continuing series. It was only an idea in the spring of 1975. A crazy idea. Two fellows shared a makeshift apartment in a garage at 1130 W. 17th Street on the outskirts of Bloomington. Roommates Mark Hood, an audio engineer, and Jeffrey Morris, an electrician and carpenter, listened to the radio deep …