WPLY (960 AM) was a

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 to serve Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, United States. It was owned by

Nassau Broadcasting Partners Nassau Broadcasting Partners LP was a company based in Princeton, New Jersey that owned radio stations in New England and the Mid-Atlantic United States. Nassau's stations, which included both AM and FM frequencies, were located in Maryland, New J ...

. It broadcast a

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

format, simulcasting with WVPO (840 AM) in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

History

The station originally signed on in April 1981 as WPCN. The locally-owned community station was notably innovative at the time for installing serial #1 of the Continental Model 314R1 PWM transmitter, which ushered in an era of enhanced audio fidelity and efficient, power-saving operation. (It has since been replaced with a Harris Gates One.) The four towers, employing elevated feeds, were guyed with non-conductive Phillystran cable, also innovative at the time. It was assigned the WPLY

call letters 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 Identifier, unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be fo ...

by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

on March 10,

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

. In January 2012, the

issued a notice of apparent liability and proposed a $17,000 fine against Nassau Broadcasting II, stating WPLY "willfully and repeatedly violated" FCC regulations. It stemmed from a random inspection at WPLY's facilities in March 2010, when it was discovered the station had been transmitting from only one of its four antennas at greatly reduced power (250 watts) without receiving authorization, and had been doing so since Nassau purchased the station in 2000. FCC regulations require that stations unable to operate at full power must apply for a temporary authorization to operate at reduced power, which WPLY did only after the 2010 inspection, claiming that the station's antenna array was "severely deteriorated" and in need of extensive repairs. The notice also stated that WPLY did not maintain an FCC-required

public file A public file (or public inspection file) is a collection of documents required by a broadcasting authority to be maintained by all broadcast stations under its jurisdiction. Such a file is required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ...

, and that station personnel claimed they had never kept such a file. WPLY left the air June 27, 2011 to determine if its antenna system needed to be repaired or replaced. It never resumed broadcasting, and on March 6, 2014 its license was canceled for failure to broadcast for a year. The towers were dismantled and removed in early 2019, and the site, at the intersection of Interstates 380 and 80, has remained vacant.

References

External links

Facility details for Facility ID 67060 (WPLY)
in the FCC Licensing and Management System
FCC History Cards for WPLY
(covering 1979-1981 as WPCN)

{{News/Talk Radio Stations in Pennsylvania

PLY PLY is a computer file format known as the Polygon File Format or the Stanford Triangle Format. It was principally designed to store three-dimensional data from 3D scanners. The data storage format supports a relatively simple description of a s ...

Defunct radio stations in the United States Pocono Mountains Nassau Broadcasting Partners Radio stations established in 1981 Radio stations disestablished in 2014 1981 establishments in Pennsylvania 2014 disestablishments in Pennsylvania