WORT Technical Information

Coverage Area

WORT broadcasts a 2000-watt omnidirectional signal from our tower on Madison's southwest side. WORT's antenna is mounted about 1000 feet high, which gives us a good coverage area - approximately 50 mile radius. Click here or on the map to see our coverage map full-size.

A Digital Era...

While WORT's studios are located in downtown Madison, our actual antenna is about three miles away. Over the years, we've had several different mechanisms of getting our audio signal out to the tower, including a pair of phone lines back when the station got started.

In the early-1990s, WORT became the first station in Madison to use a microwave Studio-Transmitter-Link (STL). This system beams a microwave signal to the tower, then convets it to an FM signal for broadcast. In the late '90s, WORT upgraded to a digital STL transmitter & receiver, still microwave based.

On Monday, July 25, 2005, WORT became only the second station in the Madison area to broadcast a digital signal! As digital radio receivers become more common, WORT will be one of the "high-definition" stations available to listeners on these receivers. Station staff are currently researching the financial and technical feasibility of splitting the digital signal - a prospect that would allow us to broadcast two WORT signals at once to listeners with digital radios!

We archive our talk programs

Miss your favorite news & public affairs program? Prefer to program your own "radio" station on your mp3 player? You're in luck. WORT archives all of our news & public affairs shows at the WORT Audio Archive.

And we webstream too...

Are you outside our listening area? Work in a basement or a building with thick walls? Tune in to WORT's webstream. We have low- and high-bandwidth streams to choose from. Click here to log in.

Improving your 89.9 FM reception

WERU-FM, a community radio station in Maine, has good advice on how to improve your FM radio reception. Click here to read their advice.