WHCN
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

WHCN (105.9
MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
) is a
commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
FM
radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radio ...
licensed to
Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
. It broadcasts a
classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...
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. iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly 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 fou ...
It is called "The River 105.9," a reference to the
Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...
. The studios and offices are on Columbus Boulevard in Hartford. The
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...
site is at West Peak State Park in nearby Meriden. In addition to a standard
analog transmission Analog transmission is a transmission method of conveying information using a continuous signal which varies in amplitude, phase, or some other property in proportion to that information. It could be the transfer of an analog signal, using an ana ...
, WHCN broadcasts using
HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...
technology. Its HD2
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 ...
plays electronic dance music and is known as "Club Jam EDM." WHCN is one of the oldest FM stations, beginning as an experimental outlet in 1939.


Signal

WHCN is a Class B FM station. It would normally transmit at 50,000
watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of 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 quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s ERP (
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 hav ...
) at a HAAT (
Height Above Average Terrain Height above average terrain (HAAT), or (less popularly) effective height above average terrain (EHAAT), is the vertical position of an antenna site is above the surrounding landscape. HAAT is used extensively in FM radio and television, as it is ...
) of 150 meters. Because WHCN's
tower 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 ...
is 264 meters, it is limited to an ERP of 16,000 watts, in order to maintain an equivalent coverage area. Its signal is radiated using a directional pattern, with the maximum sent toward Hartford at 30° azimuth. It is reduced in other directions, and weakest toward the southwest, at 190° and 230° azimuth. This is done to avoid interference with
WQXR-FM WQXR-FM (105.9 FM) is an American non-commercial classical radio station, licensed to Newark, New Jersey and serving the North Jersey and New York City area. It is owned by the nonprofit organization New York Public Radio, which also operates ...
, also on 105.9 MHz, whose transmitter is in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. In those directions, the signal is .45 of full power, or 7,200 watts; WQXR operates with reduced power (610 watts at 416 meters) to avoid interfering with WHCN.


History


Experimental authorization

In the 1930s, experiments were begun into establishing radio stations broadcasting on "Very High Frequency" (VHF) assignments above 30 MHz. Reception of stations operating on these frequencies tended to be limited to line-of-sight distances, so placing the transmitting antenna at as high an altitude as possible provided maximum coverage. Stations operating on these higher frequencies were known informally as "
Apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe * Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe *Apex ...
" stations, and initially employed "amplitude modulation" (AM) transmissions like those used in the standard AM broadcast band.
Franklin M. Doolittle Franklin Malcolm Doolittle (June 16, 1893 – March 4, 1979) was a radio industry pioneer, who founded WDRC (AM), WDRC, the oldest AM station in Connecticut, in addition to that state's first FM station, WHCN, which was also one of the first FM b ...
, the owner of AM station WDRC in Hartford, obtained permission to establish an experimental Apex station, W1XSL, with a transmitter site located on Meriden Mountain."We Pay Our Respects To— Franklin Malcolm Doolittle"
''Broadcasting'', December 1, 1939, page 45.
Another innovation during the 1930s was the introduction of a competing transmission technology, "wide-band frequency modulation" (FM), which was developed in the United States by
Edwin Howard Armstrong Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system. He held 42 patents and received numerous aw ...
. This was promoted as being superior to AM transmissions, in particular due to its high fidelity and near immunity to static interference. On June 17, 1936 Armstrong formally demonstrated his FM system to the FCC. Doolittle was impressed with FM's potential, and in early 1939 announced plans to convert the Meriden experimental high frequency station, now operating under the call sign W1XPW, into an FM broadcasting station. W1XPW's conversion to FM was reported to have been completed as of May 13, 1939, with the station now operating with 1,000 watts on 43.4 MHz. Following an irregular series of test transmissions, the station inaugurated regular programming on October 2, with an initial schedule of 2 to 10 p.m. daily. W1XPW was the third FM station to broadcast on a regular schedule, after Edwin Armstrong's
W2XMN W2XMN was an experimental FM radio station located in Alpine, New Jersey. It was constructed beginning in 1936 by Edwin Howard Armstrong in order to promote his invention of wide-band FM broadcasting. W2XMN was the first FM station to begin regula ...
in Alpine, New Jersey, and the Yankee Network's W1XOJ in Massachusetts. However, W2XMN was unaffiliated with any AM stations, and W1XOJ was owned by the Yankee radio network, so station publicity referred to W1XPW as the "first frequency-modulated outlet to be built by an independently-owned commercial broadcasting station" (WDRC). On January 4, 1940 W1XPW participated in the first demonstration of an FM over-the-air inter-city relay, which originated in Yonkers, New York, was received and relayed in turn to W1XPW by Armstrong's W2XMN in Alpine, then further relayed to W1XOJ in Massachusetts.


Commercial operation

In May 1940, the FCC authorized an FM band effective January 1, 1941, operating on 40 channels spanning 42–50 MHz. WDRC, Inc. was issued a Construction Permit for a station on 46.5 MHz that was assigned the call sign W65H. Effective November 1, 1943, the FCC modified its policy for FM callsigns, and the call sign was changed to WDRC-FM. In 1946, as part of a general relocation to a new FM band allocation, the station was reassigned to 94.3 MHz, and the following year moved to 93.7 MHz. In 1924-1925, Franklin Doolittle made the first stereo radio broadcasts, when the broadcasting station he had founded in 1922, WPAJ (WDRC after 1925), was temporarily authorized to broadcast left and right audio channels over two different frequencies on the AM band. In 1952 he returned to dual-transmitter stereo experimentation, when New York City's WQXR paired with its FM sister station,
WQXR-FM WQXR-FM (105.9 FM) is an American non-commercial classical radio station, licensed to Newark, New Jersey and serving the North Jersey and New York City area. It is owned by the nonprofit organization New York Public Radio, which also operates ...
, to transmit a stereo program that was relayed for rebroadcast by WDRC and WDRC-FM. WDRC-FM's call letters were changed to WFMQ on January 1, 1955. In 1957, the station was purchased by The Concert Network, Inc., a network of FM stations that primarily provided classical music programming, whose affiliates included WBCN in Boston,
WNCN WNCN (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States, serving the Research Triangle area as an affiliate of CBS. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on Front Street in north Ral ...
in New York City, and WXCN in Providence, Rhode Island. WFMQ's call sign was changed to WHCN, and the next year the station moved to its current assignment of 105.9 MHz.


Rock music era

WHCN shifted from classical music to
progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
in 1969. The format was later flipped to mainstream
album rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the 1970s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock. Album-orient ...
in late 1976. Known as "106-WHCN", it was very successful in the 1970s and the 1980s. WHCN was home to the morning show "Picozzi and The Horn", up until the mid-1990s. Mike Picozzi would later move to rival rock station
WCCC-FM WCCC (106.9  FM) – branded ''K-Love'' – is a non-commercial contemporary Christian radio station licensed to serve Hartford, Connecticut. Owned by the Educational Media Foundation, WCCC does not broadcast any local programming, function ...
, eventually becoming program director there. WHCN flipped to
classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...
in the mid-1990s to compete for the older rock audience that grew up with the station. New owners switched the moniker to "105-9 WHCN," moving to a harder-edged classic rock format billed as "Classic Rock That Really Rocks". WHCN would be snapped up by Liberty Broadcasting, then SFX Broadcasting/Capstar, and then AMFM, which merged with
iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly 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 fou ...
(then known as Clear Channel Communications) in 2000.


Move to adult hits

After years of declining ratings, the 33-year run of the WHCN brand came to an abrupt end in March 2002, when WHCN became known as "The River 105.9", retaining most of its on-air staff from its previous Classic Rock incarnation. The station's "The Rock" slogan and later the station's former Asylum Street studios would be adopted by one-time rival WCCC. WHCN's
playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sever ...
was more diverse than other stations in the market, which helped it shoot up in ratings from 13th place to 5th place within a year. At one time the station's HD2 signal was a rock format known as "Deep Tracks", that played less familiar titles.HD Radio Guide for Hartford-New Britain-Middletown
/ref> It was later changed to Club Jam EDM.


See also


References


External links

*
FCC History Cards for WHCN
(covering 1940-1981 as W65H / WDRC-FM / WFMQ) {{Authority control HCN Radio stations established in 1939 IHeartMedia radio stations 1939 establishments in Connecticut