WVSG (820

kHz 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 uni ...

, " St. Gabriel Radio") is a non-commercial AM

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 ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

. It airs local

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

talk programming in addition to the

EWTN The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is an American basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock Catholic programming. It is the largest Catholic television network in America, and is purported to be "the world's larges ...

Global Catholic Radio Network. WVSG's schedule is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

on WSGR, 88.3 FM in New Boston, Ohio. WVSG broadcasts with 6,500

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 non-directional in the daytime, offering secondary coverage to almost half of Ohio, as far west as

Dayton Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

and the outer suburbs of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

and as far north as the outer suburbs of Toledo. Because 820 AM is a clear channel frequency, at night a six-

tower array A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower ...

is used in a directional pattern to protect the signal of Class A WBAP

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

. WVSG's

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 off Red Rock Boulevard in Columbus.

History

Ohio State University

The station, the oldest radio station in Columbus, was originally owned by

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. It was one of many radio stations signed on by universities in the early days of radio. On March 23, 1920, the university was granted an experimental license with 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 ...

8XI. Its debut broadcast was on April 20, 1920. It featured a speech by university president

William Oxley Thompson William Oxley Thompson, D.D. (November 5, 1855 – December 9, 1933) was the fifth president of Ohio State University. During his term as president, he was known for his practice of segregationist policies against black students on campus ...

."Anniversary—WOSU's 25th"
''The Ohio State University Monthly'', April 1945, page 3. In the fall of 1921 8XI's experimental license was deleted, and the university was issued a Technical and Training School station license with the call sign 8YO. Effective December 1, 1921, the Department of Commerce, which regulated radio at this time, adopted regulations requiring that stations making broadcasts intended for the general public obtain a "Limited Commercial" license. On June 3, 1922, the university was issued its first broadcasting station license, with the call sign WEAO. The call letters were randomly assigned from a sequential roster of available call signs. In

1933 Events January * January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independen ...

, the call letters were changed to WOSU, representing Ohio State University's initials.''Education's Own Stations'' (Ohio State University section) by S. E. Frost, 1937, pages 274-291. In 1949, an FM station was added,

WOSU-FM WOSU-FM (89.7 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Columbus, Ohio, featuring a public radio news and information format known as "89.7fm NPR News". Owned by Ohio State University, the station serves the Columbus met ...

at 89.7 MHz. At first, the FM station largely

the AM's programming. Because 820 AM was a

daytimer A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross ...

, required to go off the air at night, WOSU-FM was able to continue the AM's programs into the evening. In 1956, a TV station was added,

WOSU-TV WOSU-TV (channel 34) is a PBS member television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Owned by Ohio State University as part of WOSU Public Media, it is sister to public radio stations WOSU-FM (89.7) and WOSA (101.1 FM). The three station ...

Channel 34.

WOSU

For much of the 1960s and '70s, WOSU's programming was mostly locally originated, featuring diverse music programs from classical and jazz, and later included the seasonal

Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts are a regular series of weekly broadcasts on network radio of full-length opera performances. They are transmitted live from the stage (theatre), stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Me ...

on Saturday afternoons, hosted by long-time announcer Milton Cross and later by Peter Allen after Cross' death. The station participated with the gradual evolution of

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

(NPR). It also broadcast live remotes from the

Ohio State Fair The Ohio State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the United States, held in Columbus, Ohio during late July through early August. As estimated in a 2011 economic impact study conducted by Saperstein & Associates; the State Fair contribut ...

. By the year 2000, WOSU primarily aired

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

news and talk programming, supplemented by programs from

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and o ...

and

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...

. It was also home to the Ohio State

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

and

women's basketball Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It was first played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large parts via women's college compet ...

broadcasts. On weekend evenings the station featured 12 hours of bluegrass music on a program called ''The Bluegrass Ramble'', hosted by a group of three rotating announcers. In addition to its sports and news coverage, the station produced an award-winning talk show, ''Open Line'' with host Fred Andrle, who retired in May 2009 after 25 years in radio. In September 2009 Andrle's program was replaced by ''All Sides With Ann Fisher'', hosted by former ''Columbus Dispatch'' reporter and columnist Ann Fisher, who came to WOSU with 20 years of journalism experience. Ohio State eventually decided to concentrate its radio broadcasting efforts on the FM band. In 2010, the university purchased station WWCD at 101.1 FM, changing its call letters to

WOSA WOSA (101.1 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Grove City, Ohio, featuring a classical music format known as "Classical 101fm". Owned by Ohio State University, the station serves Columbus, Ohio, and much of the surro ...

. The 101.1 station mostly plays

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

, leaving

89.7 FM to concentrate on news and informational programming. WOSU-FM 89.7 and WOSU 820 began simulcasting again, carrying NPR news and talk shows. The FM signal was branded as the main station, under the moniker "89.7 FM NPR News". The university also announced that it was putting WOSU 820 AM up for sale. In September 2011, a deal was finalized to sell 820 AM, pending

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) approval. St. Gabriel Radio agreed to pay $2 million."OSU sells 820 AM to Catholic station"
by Bill Bush, ''Columbus Dispatch'', September 10, 2011. The sale and transfer of license was approved by the FCC on November 7, 2011. No formal announcement of farewell or final goodbye to listeners was made prior to the final shutdown of WOSU. The station ended its regular NPR and local news broadcasts at 5 p.m. on December 9, 2011, after which it aired a continuous announcement loop informing listeners that its news and talk format would continue on 89.7 WOSU-FM. The announcements continued until 9:00 a.m. on December 14, when the signal was abruptly shut down in the middle of the sentence "I'm Mandie Trimble, W...", ending before the full WOSU call sign was spoken.

WVSG

New call letters were granted on December 15, WVSG. The station returned to the air on December 17 after 3 days of silence. The station made its official debut at 6 p.m. on December 20. The introduction of WVSG was part of a series of station acquisitions and deacquisitions by St. Gabriel Radio, Inc. in its work to provide Catholic programming for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus. Named for the

Archangel Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...

– the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of communication workers – St. Gabriel Radio initially purchased WUCO 1270 kHz (now WDLR) in Marysville in 2005 from Frontier Broadcasting. WUCO became the first full-time Catholic radio station licensed in Ohio since Cleveland's WMIH (now WCCR) was sold to

Radio Disney Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California. The network broadcast music programming ...

in 1998. After this purchase, WUCO's studios and offices were moved from Marysville to Columbus, the diocese's hub, thus increasing its volunteer and listener base. In 2007, St. Gabriel Radio began simulcasting WUCO's Catholic programming over WVKO (1580 AM), under a lease agreement with station owner Bernard, Ohio L.L.C. WVKO's superior signal provided better coverage of the Columbus region than WUCO's less powerful directional signal. WVKO had previously aired a liberal

progressive talk Progressive talk radio is a talk radio format devoted to expressing left-leaning viewpoints of news and issues as opposed to conservative talk radio. In the United States, the format has included syndicated and independent personalities such as ...

format, and the initial plan was that St. Gabriel Radio would eventually purchase the station. WUCO was sold in January 2010 to ICS Communications, and after Ohio State University announced that WOSU was for sale, St. Gabriel Radio decided it would purchase that station instead of WVKO. A fundraiser, "Leave a Legacy", focused on raising funds for the purchase. The transition of St. Gabriel programming from 1580 to 820 AM took place on at 6 p.m. on December 20, 2011, during the broadcast of "The Local Spotlight Show", which began that evening on WVKO and concluded on WVSG. WVKO (now

WXGT WXGT (1580 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial regional Mexican radio station licensed to serve Columbus, Ohio, serving the Columbus metropolitan area, Ohio, Columbus metropolitan area. Owned by ICS Communications, Inc., the WXGT studios are ...

) then began airing continuing announcements informing St. Gabriel listeners to switch to AM 820, until it returned to a progressive talk format at 6 a.m. on January 2, 2012. St. Gabriel Radio also owned and operated WFOT 89.5 MHz, licensed to Lexington and serving the

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of the Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area and the second largest settlement in Nottinghamshire (following the city ...

area as a near-simulcast of the AM station. WFOT made its on-air debut in February 2007. WFOT now broadcasts the programming of Annunciation Radio based in Toledo. St. Gabriel Radio's mission is to reach the entire Columbus diocese, and WVSG almost accomplishes this during the daytime hours, with the exception of the far southern region around Portsmouth. In January 2019, the southern coverage was improved by establishing a simulcast over WSGR 88.3 FM in New Boston."St. Gabriel Catholic Radio: About Us"
(stgabrielradio.com)

References

External links