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March 20, 2010 |
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History
WHBY was the first radio station licensed in Northeastern Wisconsin. It was licensed to operate in 1925 in DePere, about 20 miles northeast of Appleton. Even though it began operating under a commercial license in 1925, it had been on the air several years prior to that as a special project of the physics department of St. Norbert College in DePere.
WHBY became a thriving commercial enterprise for the Norbertine Fathers, with studios in Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh, among other cities. Soon, the Norbertine Fathers desired to increase the power of WHBY, then 250 watts. However, at that time (the early 1930's) the Federal Radio Commission required that licensees purchase the rights to another station and move it to the community they wished to serve. Thus, they purchased WTAQ (1360 kHz), moved it to Green Bay and called it WBAY. But what to do with WHBY?
In the late 1930's The Norbertines built a new facility in Appleton, the new home of WHBY. The new building included a transmitter room, studios and living quarters for the engineer.
The Norbertine Fathers owned both WHBY and WBAY radio for many years. They added WBAY-FM and WBAY TV over time. In 1975 due to the new FCC requirements concerning the number of media outlets owned by one entity, they sold all of their broadcast properties. WHBY was purchased by The Telegraph Herald, Incorporated, now known as Woodward Communications Incorporated, based in Dubuque, Iowa.
Woodward operated WHBY for several years from the old location at 600 South Lawe Street, but it soon became apparent that the 1939 facility, despite three additions, would not be adequate to carry it into the 1980's and beyond. The company also had just purchased the FM station WAPL and wished to have studios for both stations in the same building.
Land was purchased on the east side of Appleton's new industrial park and the building, one of the first in the state to be designed as a broadcast facility, was built at 2727 East Radio Road. The stations won the Broadcast Management and Engineering award for "Best AM/FM Station" of 1979. The previous year, service to the community had been improved with the expansion of the broadcast day to 24 hours.
In 1991 WHBY made another big move ... to another location on the radio dial! Due to restrictions at the existing 1230 dial position, the broadcast signal could not be improved at that location, so it was decided to purchase another area frequency and transmitter site. 1150 WYNE licensed to Kimberly, Wisconsin, was purchased and improvements made to optimize its broadcast capabilities at 5000 watts.
Beginning in December of 1991, WHBY was repositioned on the dial to 1150, where it remains today serving The Fox Cities with news, weather, sports and entertainment.
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Copyright © 2010 Woodward Communications, Inc. |
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