| Fort Wayne, Indiana | |
|---|---|
| Branding | PBS 39 |
| Channels | Digital: 40 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | PBS |
| Owner | Fort Wayne Public Television, Inc. |
| First air date | December 5, 1964(originally low-power W39AA 1964-1986) |
| Call letters' meaning | Fort WAyne |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 39 (1964-2009) |
| Former affiliations | NET (1964-1970) |
| Transmitter power | 90 kW |
| Height | 221 m |
| Facility ID | 22108 |
| Website | www.wfwa.org |
WFWA is a Public television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, broadcasting locally on channel 39 (remapped from channel 40) as a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member station. Bruce Haines is the current president and general manager of WFWA.[1]
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In 1964, W39AA, a translator of WBGU-TV in Bowling Green, Ohio, signed on on channel 39. Prior to 1974, Fort Wayne had been the only area of Indiana without access to PBS programming even on cable. (It was standard practice for PBS to offer programs to commercial stations in markets without PBS-member stations, but no evidence concerning Fort Wayne has yet surfaced.) This low-powered repeater station was merely a placeholder, as channel 39 was allocated as a full-powered Educational television channel in Fort Wayne. By the early 1980s, the station became a translator of Indianapolis PBS station WFYI.
On March 12, 1985, a local public television group was granted the channel 39 slot from the FCC, and was granted the call letters WFWA; on December 5, 1986, WFWA signed on, bringing northeast Indiana its own PBS station for the first time ever.
The station currently operates from the Dr. Rudy and Rhonda Kachmann Teleplex at the corner of Coliseum Boulevard and Crescent Avenue on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Their former studio on Butler Road continues to serve as the station's transmitter site.
In 2003, WFWA became the first station in Fort Wayne to broadcast in digital, originally airing the national PBS HDTV feed on a separate subchannel from regular programming; funding issues would later cause the national HD feed to be pulled, leaving all programming in standard-definition for several years. WFWA ceased analog broadcasts after February 17, 2009, the original deadline for the digital television transition. It was announced that WFWA's main channel 39.1 would broadcast high-definition full-time sometime during summer 2010. [2] During a summer 2010 pledging break, general manager, Bruce Haines, announced this change would occur on July 4, 2010 at 7:30 P.M.
The station's channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 39.1 | Main WFWA programming / PBS HD |
| 39.2 | Kids 39* |
| 39.3 | Create |
| 39.4 | 39-4you~ |
* Formerly, WFWA had shown PBS Kids on channel 39.2. When the service ended on Setember 26, 2005, WFWA replaced it with its own service for children.
~ WFWA aired the Annenberg/CPB Channel on 39.4 until October 1, 2008. The satellite feed for Annenberg was discontinued at that time. [3]
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