WPYX (106.5 FM "PYX 106") is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

licensed A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, and serving the

Capital District A capital district, capital region, or capital territory is normally a specially designated administrative division where a country's seat of government is located. As such, in a federal model of government, no state or territory has any politic ...

. It broadcasts a

classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. WPYX also carries

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

games. WPYX has an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would ha ...

(ERP) of 15,500

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

is on Pinnacle Road in

Helderberg Escarpment The Helderberg Escarpment, also known as the Helderberg Mountains, is an escarpment in eastern New York (state), New York, United States, roughly west of the city of Albany, New York, Albany. The escarpment is the northeastern extremity of th ...

tower farm in New Scotland, amid the

towers A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

for other Albany-area TV and FM stations. WPYX broadcasts using

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

technology. Its HD-2

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

formerly played

1970s File:1970s decade montage.jpg, Clockwise from top left: U.S. President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office following the Watergate scandal in 1974; The United States was still involved in the Vietnam War ...

classic rock, branded as "Gran Turino Radio".

History

Middle of the road and top 40

In September 1967, the station

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

as WDKC. It played middle of the road (MOR) music and was owned by Kopps-Monahan Communications, Inc., which also owned

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

powerhouse WTRY

980 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 980 kHz: 980 AM is classified as a regional broadcast frequency by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ...

(today's WOFX). In 1971, the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

was changed to WTRY-FM to match its AM counterpart. It continued as an MOR station during the day, but would simulcast WTRY's Top 40 format at night. In 1972, it returned to a full time MOR sound. In early 1973, the WTRY-AM-FM were sold, and WTRY-FM became WHSH, which then went to its first full-time rock format as the format was changed to a Top 40–

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

hybrid with live DJs. The station was now known as "Wish" as well as "The Albany Stereo Giant" and "Your Albany Wish". Ownership

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

the station a year later in 1974, and changed the format to Oldies.

Beautiful music and album rock

During Labor Day weekend, 1975, the format was flipped again, this time to beautiful music, while keeping the "Wish" nickname. From 1975 to 1980, the station played quarter hour sweeps of mostly instrumental

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular songs, along with some

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

and

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

show tunes. By 1980 there was an obvious hole for a mainstream

album-oriented rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the late 1960s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock. US rad ...

(AOR) station in the Albany market. Under the direction of Ted Utz who moved from WAQX in Syracuse, WHSH flipped to its current format on September 15, 1980, changing the call sign to WPYX and calling itself "PYX 106". WPYX used all live and local

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

s until April 28, 2009, when management replaced most of the local DJs with announcers from other cities who voice-track their shows, to make them sound as if they are in the Capital District.

Ownership changes

WPYX and WTRY went through several changes in ownership over the years. These included Scott Broadcasting of Pennsylvania, television personality

Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway theatre, Broadway. From 1962 to 1986, G ...

and Capstar Broadcasting (which was controlled by billionaire mogul

Tom Hicks Thomas Ollis Hicks Sr. (born February 7, 1946), is an American private equity investor and sports team owner living in Dallas, Texas. ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Hicks' wealth at $1 billion in 2009, but it dropped to $700 million in 2010 ...

). In 1999, Capstar merged with another Hicks-owned company, Chancellor Media Corporation, to form AMFM Inc. In 2000, the stations were acquired by

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

when that company merged with AMFM. Clear Channel became iHeartMedia in 2014. WPYX has kept its same call letters and Rock format since .

HD Radio operations

In 2005, WPYX upgraded to

IBOC In-band on-channel (IBOC) is a hybrid method of transmitting digital radio and analog radio broadcast signals simultaneously on the same frequency. The name refers to the new digital signals being broadcast in the same AM or FM band (in-band) ...

digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. This should not be confused with In ...

alongside the rest of Clear Channel's Albany stations. On August 17, 2006, WPYX began airing an HD2 channel with a deep tracks classic rock format, known as ''Vinyl Vineyard'' which was later replaced with a classic country format in August 2012. The classic country was eventually dropped. In September 2018, WPYX-HD2 began playing a

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...

format called, "iHeartChristmas Lites". That format later gave way to "Gran Torino Radio", a format of 1970s

. The HD2 subchannel has since been turned off.

References

External links

* * {{New York Giants PYX Classic rock radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1967 1967 establishments in New York (state) IHeartMedia radio stations