WPTX (1690 AM) is an
adult standards
Adult standards (also sometimes known as the nostalgia or Big Band format) is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.
Adult standards started in the 1950s and is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly tho ...
and
soft oldies formatted
broadcast
Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...
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 ...
.
The station is licensed to
Lexington Park, Maryland
Lexington Park is a census-designated place (CDP) in St. Mary's County, Maryland, United States, and the principal community of the Lexington Park, Maryland United States micropolitan area, Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 11,626 ...
and serves
Southern Maryland
Southern Maryland, also referred to as SoMD, is a geographical, cultural and historic region in Maryland composed of the state's southernmost counties on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the state of Maryland, the region incl ...
and the
Northern Neck
The Northern Neck is the northernmost of three peninsulas (traditionally called "necks" in Virginia) on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia (along with the Middle Peninsula and the Virginia Peninsula). The P ...
of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
in the United States.
WPTX is owned and operated by Somar Communications, Inc.
WPTX is Maryland's first and only
AM expanded band
The extended mediumwave broadcast band, commonly known as the AM expanded band, refers to the broadcast station frequency assignments immediately above the earlier upper limits of 1600 kHz in International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Regio ...
radio station, having moved to the expanded band from 920 kHz on July 15, 1998. It operates with 10,000 watts daytime and reduces power to 1,000 at night to protect other stations on
1690 AM. Programming is also heard on 250-watt
FM translator
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...
W264DR at 100.7
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...
in Lexington Park.
History
WPTX originated as the expanded band "twin" of an existing station, with the same call sign, on the standard AM band.
The original WPTX was established by Patuxent Radio, Inc., owned by World War II pilot Jack Daugherty and businessman Paul Chapman,
who obtained a construction permit on October 15, 1952, for the new station, initially operating daytime-only with 1,000 watts on 1570 kHz.
[ ( Guide to reading History Cards)] Daugherty started WPTX in part because he felt Lexington Park needed its own civil institutions, having found resentment in his dealings in the county seat of Leonardtown. In 1953
St. Mary's County went from having no local station to having two, as WKIK (1370 AM) in
Leonardtown signed on January 7, followed by WPTX on February 4.
In the early years of WPTX, Daugherty's 7-year-old son Tom was often let in by one of the disc jockeys to spin big band records on the station. In June, just four months after going on the air, Patuxent Radio applied to move WPTX to 920 kHz with 500 watts, remaining a daytime-only station; 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 ...
(FCC) approved the change in February 1954, making the move two months later and increasing its coverage area. Majority control changed hands four times in the next five years, ending when James S. Beattie became the sole owner of WPTX in 1959, and moved the station's studios to the Lexington Park, where they remained until 1968.
Key Broadcasting Corporation became the fifth owner of WPTX in six years when it purchased the station in 1960. Six years later, Key filed to upgrade the station to 5,000 watts and begin nighttime service with 1,000 watts; the FCC granted the application in February 1968, and the upgrade took effect in 1971. 1976, saw WPTX expand to the FM dial with the start-up of
WMDM-FM 97.7; the AM station shifted to exclusively carrying a
middle of the road format coinciding with the launch.
In 1988, Key Broadcasting sold WPTX and WMDM to Sconnix Broadcasting as part of a $25 million deal to purchase Key's Baltimore stations,
WBMD and
WQSR
WQSR (102.7 FM, "102.7 Jack FM") is a commercial radio station licensed to Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The station is owned by iHeartMedia through licensee iHM Licenses, LLC. It broadcasts an adult hits format, using the syndicated " ...
. Sconnix sold the Lexington Park outlets to Emmet Broadcasting for $1.2 million months later. After WKIK, a longtime country outlet, closed in 1992, WPTX flipped to country, WMDM-FM began simulcasting it the next year. Emmet sold the pair in 1996, when he sought to move near his family in Kentucky; Steve Garchik acquired both stations. WMDM-FM was split off again with separate programming later that year, and the AM station moved from country to talk.
Expanded Band assignment
On March 17, 1997, the FCC announced that eighty-eight stations had been given permission to move to newly available "
Expanded Band" transmitting frequencies, ranging from 1610 to 1700 kHz, with WPTX authorized to move from 920 to 1690 kHz.
["FCC Public Notice: Mass Media Bureau Announces Revised AM Expanded Band Allotment Plan and Filing Window for Eligible Stations"](_blank)
(FCC DA 97-537), March 17, 1997.
A construction permit for the expanded band station was assigned the call letters WAZC on March 6, 1998, although this was changed to WMDM three weeks later.
FCC policy mandated that both the original station and its expanded band counterpart could operate simultaneously for up to five years, after which owners would have to turn in one of the two licenses, depending on whether they preferred the new assignment or elected to remain on the original frequency.
It was quickly decided to transfer full operations to the expanded band station, beginning on July 15, 1998, and on November 16, 1999, the license for the original WPTX on 920 AM was cancelled.
Later history
The call sign on 1690 AM was changed from WMDM to the historic WPTX on March 27, 2000.
[ A year later, Roy Robertson, owner of WSMD-FM and WKIK-FM, bought WPTX and WMDM-FM. The talk programming was replaced with sports after the new acquisitions were off the air for 26 days.]
Translator
In addition to WPTX's primary frequency, the station's programming is simulcast on the following translator station
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
, on the FM band
The FM broadcast band is a range of radio frequencies used for FM broadcasting by radio stations. The range of frequencies used differs between different parts of the world. In Europe and Africa (defined as International Telecommunication Union ( ...
, to widen WPTX's broadcast area.
References
External links
WPTX Online
*
FCC History Cards for WPTX on 920 kHz
(covering 1951-1981)
*
*
{{NorthernNeck Radio
1953 establishments in Maryland
Adult standards radio stations in the United States
Oldies radio stations in the United States
Radio stations established in 1953
PTX
St. Mary's County, Maryland