The rock ‘n’ roll oldies are back on the airwaves in Benton County.
WIBN-FM 98.1, or 98 Gold, was knocked off the air in mid-April when a farmer crashed some equipment into the station’s antenna during corn planting.
The antenna then collapsed onto the FM transmitter house south of Fowler and silenced the signal.
Program director Mark Allen Carter, who runs the Oxford-based station, said the station was never completely quiet, thanks to the Internet.
“Since then we’ve been streaming on the website, and we went back on the air 8 p.m. Tuesday.”
Carter said he was excited to be back on the air. He hosts the “Mark in the Morning Show” each weekday.
Some 98 Gold listeners are happy to be hearing the familiar broadcast.
Marty Mlynarik, a regular listener and amateur radio operator, keeps his dial tuned to 98 Gold when driving north from West Lafayette.
“I listen to it while traveling to and from the Chicago area,” Mlynarik said. “I lose WASK-FM around Earl Park and cannot pick up WLS-FM until Kankakee. While WIBN has been off the air the last few months, there was a gap in my oldies radio coverage while traveling.”
The station, which plays mostly ’60s, ’70s and ’80s music, operates at 25,000 watts, reaching just south of Chicago to just north of Indianapolis, and into Illinois.
The Big Bargain Show, a weekly auction type program where listener can call in and buy items, airs 9 a.m. Saturdays. The station also broadcasts high school sports and Indianapolis Colts games.
Kim Williamson-Rabe of Crescent City, Ill., said WIBN is the only station programmed in her family’s truck radio that is not country.
“I am not a country music fan but my husband and son are. So, without IBN on-air, I had to listen to stations that played too much of a mix for me so I was always channel surfing,” she said. “With IBN back on, when I’m driving the truck, the radio is on 98.1 and it stays there.”
The total cost of the station damage was not available Thursday.
This isn’t the first time WIBN’s signal has been hampered.
In 2003 vandals shot the transmitter and damaged the antenna line, causing the station to operate at 50 percent of its normal capacity.