Tribute to Youngstown, Ohio Radio Station WHOT

In 1954, a radio station in East Liverpool, OH gave up its license for 1570 Khz making it available for WFAB in Youngstown, OH. That callsign was changed to WHOT in 1955 when it became available.

In November 1959, the station signed on the air.Its first call sign was WRED and it was the FM sister station to an AM station with the WHOT call letters. The two stations were owned by Myron Jones. From the late 1970's, FM 101.1 had an album rock format. It called itself "The Wizzard" and used the call sign WSRD. The connection between the WHOT call sign and the Top 40/CHR format is one of the longest running in modern radio history, dating back to 1955. The AM version of WHOT was one of the first Top 40 stations in the country. That station was a daytime-only signal licensed to Campbell, Ohio, on 1570 kHz (currently home to the Warren, Ohio-licensed WHTX). Despite its technical limitations, the station attained high ratings in the Youngstown radio market, which has lasted after several frequency moves, first to 1330 kHz in 1963 (now WGFT), then to 1390 kHz (now WNIO) in 1990. By 1991, the AM and FM stations broke into separate programming with the 1390 kHz facility taking an adult standards format (one that would be revisited in 1999 when WNIO's call letters and format moved to that dial position), while the 101.1 MHz became the exclusive home of the Top 40 format. Excluding a period of several months when WHOT-FM carried an album rock format in late 1991-early 1992, the station has since continued playing Top 40 contemporary hits. In August 1994, WHOT-FM and its AM counterpart, WBBW 1240 AM, were bought by Connoisseur Media for $5 million. In 2000, the stations were acquired by Cumulus Media.

On August 15, 2006, WHOT became the first station in Eastern Ohio to broadcast in HD until it ceased HD transmission in 2015.

See the TOP list of songs on the WHOT Tunedex November 27, 1972.

Here is a list of hams that worked at WHOT.

W8WDC Myron Jones

W8CXO Bill Fleckenstein SK

WN8JUX Phil Hawkins

W8QKV Gene Coxson

W8OAJ Pete Antolich SK

W3FYV Doug Noderer

W8JV Jerry Viele

W8IZC Wes Boyd

W4FM Rodger Skinner

WB8ZMZ Joe Strausser

W3XZ Hank Panko

KA8R Andy Kadvan SK

KK8DX Bob Dukish

K3TUP John Kanzius SK.

Tribute courtesy of W8CXO
Tunedex courtesy of W8SU,
Used with permission from W8CXO
History from Wikipedia