WWFD

Last updated

WWFD
WWFD The Gamut logo.jpg
Frequency 820 kHz (HD Radio) (digital only)
BrandingThe Gamut
Programming
Format Freeform, Federal News Network sports programming
Ownership
Owner
WTOP-FM/WTLP/WWWT-FM, WBQH, WFED
History
First air date
December 15, 1960;63 years ago (1960-12-15) (as WMHI at 1370)
Former call signs
  • WMHI (1960–1975)
  • WZYQ (1975–1988)
  • WQSI (1988–1996)
  • WXTR (1996–2006)
  • WTOP (2006–2007)
  • WTWT (May–September 2007)
  • WWWB (2007–2008)
Former frequencies
1370 kHz (1960–1987)
Call sign meaning
"Federal" (disambiguation of WFED)
Technical information [1]
Licensing authority
 FCC
Facility ID 74104
Class B
Power 4,300 watts day
430 watts night
Transmitter coordinates
 39°24′42.37″N77°28′1.0″W / 39.4117694°N 77.466944°W / 39.4117694; -77.466944 (WWFD)
Repeater(s)
Links
Public license information
Webcast Listen live
Website www.thegamut.fm

WWFD (820 AM HD Radio) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Frederick, Maryland. The station is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting through licensee Washington DC FCC License Sub, LLC and simulcasts the freeform programming branded as The Gamut originating on the HD3 subchannel of sister station WTOP-FM. The Gamut programming is also available on the HD3 subchannels of sister stations WTLP and WWWT-FM.

Contents

WWFD also carries Washington Capitals, Washington Nationals, and Navy Midshipmen sports programming originating on sister station WFED. [2] Sunday syndicated programming on The Gamut includes Music and the Spoken Word (with WFED), [3] Anything Anything with Rich Russo and Little Steven's Underground Garage .

WWFD was the first licensed radio station in the United States to discontinue its traditional analog signal and operate solely in digital HD Radio, which it began under experimental authorization from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2018. [4] WWFD's experiments with digital-only operation led to the FCC authorizing it on a voluntary basis for AM stations nationwide in 2020. [5]

History

This station signed on in May 1961 as daytimer WMHI on 1370 AM. From 1975 through 1988, WZYQ was contemporary hit radio (CHR) station "14ZYQ", transitioning to "Z104" during that era, with a brand emphasizing its simulcast on WZYQ-FM (103.9 FM). [6] The station received permission to add nighttime operation and move to 820 AM in 1986. [7] Two years later, 820 AM split from the simulcast, becoming country "The Big Q" WQSI with Frederick Keys baseball. [8] The FM station dropped the "-FM" suffix from its callsign (becoming WZYQ) and continued with CHR. Both stations were purchased by Liberty Broadcasting, the owner of oldies station WXTR (104.1 FM, Waldorf, Maryland), in 1995. [7] Liberty's interest was in pairing WZYQ with WXTR, as WXTR's signal did not cover the northwestern Washington metropolitan area. All three stations were sold to Bonneville International the following year, who revived the "Z104" brand on the FM pair and built a successful CHR outlet focused on the Washington market. 103.9 FM is now WTLP, a simulcast partner for WTOP-FM.

Although the callsign WXTR moved over from 104.1 FM, Bonneville continued with country music on 820 AM. [9] As with 103.9 FM, starting in 2000 Bonneville used 820 AM to bolster the coverage of one of their Washington-market stations to the northwest. Local programming ended on WXTR when it began simulcasting WTOP on December 18. [10] The WTOP callsign was "parked" on the station when it was moved off of its historical home at 1500 AM on January 11, 2006. On March 30, 2006, the station joined Washington Post Radio, continuing with its successor Talk Radio 3WT (under the callsigns WTWT and WWWB, respectively) until the network was shut down on September 15, 2008. The station then became a simulcast of Federal News Radio, taking the current callsign WWFD to match. [11] Bonneville sold its entire Washington cluster to Hubbard Broadcasting in 2011. [12]

The Gamut began as an eclectic hobby Internet radio station run by WTOP-FM engineer Dave Kolesar. WTOP management took an interest in the project, and after retooling the music and coming up with the name The Gamut, it began broadcasting on the HD3 subchannel of WTOP-FM on December 5, 2011. WWFD was the first analog home of the format, beginning its simulcast on March 20, 2013. [2] The Gamut later added a translator on 104.3 (W282BA) in Leesburg, Virginia that was previously used to repeat the main signal of WTOP-FM. This translator was given a power boost, becoming W283CD at 104.5, and relocated to Sterling in 2015. In February 2016, independently owned translator W252DC signed on from Great Falls, Virginia on 98.3.

W283CD has since been reassigned to WBQH, which temporarily left W252DC as the sole analog FM signal. [13] W252DC moved to Arlington, Virginia, then Reston, Virginia to cover the city of Washington. This translator relayed The Gamut via a simulcast of WTOP-FM-HD3, until it switched to a simulcast of WHUR-FM-HD2 (96.3, Washington, D.C.) in March 2021. [14] Hubbard signed on FM translator W232DG (94.3) in Frederick on July 11, 2017. The translator was moved under the FCC's AM revitalization rules and was required to rebroadcast the 820 AM signal for at least four years, including when it joined WFED for sports coverage. [15]

On June 30, 2018, Hubbard applied for experimental authorization to convert to all-digital HD Radio broadcasts for one year. [16] Although WWFD was by far The Gamut's largest analog signal, Kolesar stated that growing The Gamut's audience through analog AM was not viable. Previous experimental all-digital signals had a larger listenable coverage area than analog or an in-band on-channel hybrid digital signal, although this was the first long-term experiment. The station continued to feed translator W232DG to preserve analog coverage to Frederick, its city of license. WWFD shut off its analog signal at noon on July 16. [4]

Hubbard and Xperi, the current developer of HD Radio, have used WWFD to test new features and operating modes; it notably experimented with a multiplexed signal, the first of its kind for an AM station in North America, in December 2019. [17] The FCC subsequently approved voluntary all-digital AM operation nationwide on October 27, 2020. [5] After several yearly extensions of its digital authorization to continue testing with Xperi, Hubbard filed to take WWFD permanently all-digital effective August 10, 2023. [18] Translator W232DG was sold to Manning Broadcasting to relay WWEG-HD2 the following month, with digital experimentation having been completed and the translator's legal requirement to rebroadcast WWFD having expired in 2021. According to Kolesar, the "vast majority" of The Gamut's listenership in Frederick was already on the digital signal. [19]

Related Research Articles

WIL-FM is a radio station in St. Louis, Missouri. The station serves the St. Louis metropolitan area. Hubbard Broadcasting is the station licensee, authorized by the Federal Communications Commission. Its transmitter is located in St. Louis, and its studios are in Creve Coeur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HD Radio</span> Digital radio broadcast technology

HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used primarily by AM and FM radio stations in the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Mexico and the Philippines, with a few implementations outside North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WARH</span> Radio station in Granite City, Illinois, serving St. Louis, Missouri

WARH is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Granite City, Illinois and serving Greater St. Louis including sections of Illinois and Missouri. WARH is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting and airs an Adult Hits radio format. The studios and offices are in Creve Coeur, Missouri. The transmitter is located near Resurrection Cemetery off Mackenzie Road in St. Louis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WSNE-FM</span> Radio station in Massachusetts, United States

WSNE-FM is a commercial radio station, licensed to Taunton, Massachusetts, and serving Southeastern Massachusetts and the Providence, Rhode Island, area. It broadcasts a hot adult contemporary radio format branded as Now 93.3, and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The radio studios and offices are on Oxford Street in Providence. The station carries the syndicated On Air with Ryan Seacrest in afternoons. Several of the other shifts are voicetracked by DJs working at other iHeart stations.

WFED is a 50,000-watt Class A radio station in the Washington, D.C. region. The station, branded as "Federal News Network", broadcasts a news talk format focused on issues and news pertaining to members and staff of the United States government. Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, the current WFED is the second in the Washington area to carry the Federal News Network format as WFED, as from 2004 until a transfer in 2008, this format and related call letters were used by a Silver Spring, Maryland station broadcasting on 1050 kHz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KRXO-FM</span> Radio station in Oklahoma City

KRXO-FM is a commercial radio station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is owned by Ty and Tony Tyler's Tyler Media, L.L.C., and it carries a sports radio format. The studios are on East Britton Road the northeast side of Oklahoma City. KRXO-FM is one of two Tyler Media stations in Oklahoma City that air a sports format, the other being KEBC. KRXO-FM has mostly Oklahoma-based sports shows with SportsMap heard late nights and weekends.

Washington Post Radio was a short-lived attempt by Bonneville Broadcasting and The Washington Post to create a commercial long-form all-news radio network in the style of National Public Radio. The small network of stations based in the Washington, D.C., area occupied the AM 1500 frequency, which up to the point of the founding of WPR was the home of Bonneville's all-news WTOP, and is set to be given to WFED.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WMGG</span> Radio station in Egypt Lake, Florida

WMGG is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Egypt Lake, Florida, whose main AM signal is exclusively digital via HD Radio. WMGG serves the Tampa Bay area and is owned by Daniel de la Rosa, through licensee DRC Broadcasting, Inc. WMGG airs a Spanish-language tropical radio format. The station uses the moniker "Ritmo 101.9".

WDCJ, known on air as "Majic 102.3 & 92.7," is an urban oldies-leaning urban adult contemporary formatted radio station licensed to Prince Frederick, Maryland, and serving the southeastern Washington metropolitan area. The station's programming is a relay of WMMJ in Bethesda, Maryland

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WMXC</span> Radio station in Mobile, Alabama

WMXC is a commercial radio station licensed to Mobile, Alabama, and serving the Mobile and Pensacola metropolitan areas. The station broadcasts an adult contemporary radio format, switching to Christmas music for much of November and December. It is owned by iHeartMedia, with the broadcast license held by iHM Licenses, LLC. The studios are co-located with former sister television station WKRG-TV on Broadcast Drive in Mobile. WMXC carries several syndicated shows from co-owned Premiere Networks: Murphy, Sam & Jodi in morning drive time, Delilah in the evening and Ellen K on Saturday mornings.

WPRS-FM is an urban gospel formatted radio station in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The station is licensed to Waldorf, Maryland, and is co-owned with WKYS-FM, WMMJ, WOL and WYCB and has studios located in Silver Spring, Maryland, with a transmitter located just east of Waldorf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WKSI-FM</span> Radio station in Stephens City, Virginia

WKSI-FM is a contemporary hit radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Stephens City, Virginia, serving the Northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. WKSI-FM is owned and operated by iHeartMedia

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WBQH</span> Radio station in Silver Spring, Maryland

WBQH is a radio broadcasting station in the Washington, D.C. region, licensed to Silver Spring, Maryland. It broadcasts a Regional Mexican format. It is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, and is leased to United Media Group LLC. WBQH programming is heard on FM translator W228DI (93.5), also in Silver Spring.

WXVA – branded as 102.9 Valley FM – is a classic hits formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Winchester, Virginia, serving the Northern Shenandoah Valley. WXVA is owned and operated by Winchester Radio Broadcasters, LLC.

WTOP may refer to:

WIXK is a commercial AM radio station broadcasting a music, news and talk radio format for the Hmong community of the Twin Cities. It is licensed to New Richmond, Wisconsin, and serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The station is owned by Mai Yia Vang, through licensee Hmong Radio Broadcast, LLC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTOP-FM</span> All-news radio station in Washington, D.C.

WTOP-FM – branded "WTOP Radio" and "WTOP News" – is a commercial all-news radio station licensed to serve Washington, D.C. Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, the station serves the Washington metropolitan area, extending its reach through two repeater stations: WTLP in Braddock Heights, Maryland, and WWWT-FM (107.7) in Manassas, Virginia. The WTOP-FM studios, referred to on-air as the "WTOP Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center", are located on Wisconsin Avenue in the Washington D.C. suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland, while the station transmitter is located on the American University campus. Besides a standard analog transmission, WTOP-FM broadcasts over three HD Radio channels, and is available online.

The Washington Nationals radio network is a United States radio network airing Washington Nationals baseball games in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The Washington Nationals Radio Network consists of 18 full-powered stations supplemented by 8 analog AM-to-FM translators and 3 digital HD subchannels. The flagship is WJFK-FM/106.7.

WLZV – branded K-Love – is a non-commercial contemporary Christian radio station licensed to serve Buckland, Virginia. Owned and operated by the Educational Media Foundation, WLZV does not broadcast any local programming, functioning as the Northern Virginia network affiliate for K-Love; WLZV also services the southwestern portion of the Washington metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WAKS-HD2</span> Digital subchannel of Cleveland market radio station WAKS (96.5 FM)

WAKS-HD2 is a digital subchannel of WAKS, a commercial radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio, which features an urban contemporary format known as "Real 106.1". Owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., WAKS-HD2 serves Greater Cleveland and surrounding Northeast Ohio and is the FM radio home of Cleveland Charge basketball. Using the proprietary technology HD Radio for its main digital transmission, WAKS-HD2 is also rebroadcast over low-power analog translator W291BV (106.1 FM), and streams online via iHeartRadio. WAKS-HD2's studios are located at the Six Six Eight Building in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District, while the WAKS-HD2 and W291BV transmitters reside in Brecksville and Parma, respectively.

References

  1. ↑ "Facility Technical Data for WWFD". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. 1 2 Crowe, Katie (May 3, 2013). "Mixing it up". The Frederick News-Post. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  3. ↑ "WWFD Community Commitment Report" (PDF). FCC Public Inspection File.
  4. 1 2 "WWFD 820 AM Becomes First All-Digital AM Station". Radio-Online. July 16, 2018.
  5. 1 2 "FCC AUTHORIZES ALL-DIGITAL AM RADIO" (PDF). fcc.gov. Federal Communications Commission. October 27, 2020. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  6. ↑ "Broadcasting/Cablecasting Yearbook 1984" (PDF). pp. B-118.
  7. 1 2 "WWFD Facility Data". FCCData.
  8. ↑ Hendrickson, Paul (June 14, 1993). "These Keys are minor". Washington Post.
  9. ↑ Hughes, Dave (September 22, 2000). "TOP To Add 820 AM". DCRTV.
  10. ↑ Hughes, Dave (December 18, 2000). "TOP Adds Frederick Simulcast". DCRTV.
  11. ↑ Hughes, Dave (September 15, 2008). "WFED Makes Move To 1500". DCRTV.
  12. ↑ "$505M sale: Bonneville sells Chicago, D.C., St. Louis and Cincinnati to Hubbard". Radio-Info.com. January 19, 2011. Archived from the original on January 21, 2011.
  13. ↑ Hughes, Dave (November 29, 2016). "Gamut's 104.5 Goes Away". DCRTV.
  14. ↑ Venta, Lance (March 3, 2021). "WHUR Adds Translator For The Quiet Storm Station". RadioInsight.
  15. ↑ Hughes, Dave (July 12, 2017). "Gamut Adds 94.3". DCRTV.
  16. ↑ "WWFD(AM) Engineering STA, Exhibit 13: Request for Experimental Authority". fcc.gov. Federal Communications Commission. June 28, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  17. ↑ Fybush, Scott (December 6, 2019). "HD2 arrives on AM radio". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  18. ↑ "AM Digital Notification Application (LMS File No. 218678)". FCC LMS. July 31, 2023.
  19. ↑ "Look Ma, No Translator: Hubbard Maryland AM To Broadcast Solely In All-Digital Mode". Insideradio.com. July 10, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.