WCTM
| City |
Eaton, Ohio (AM studio/transmitter site at Glenwood,east of Eaton) |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Eaton and Preble County,plus Dayton and Richmond area |
| Branding | Radio Ranch 1130 WCTM (reference to its rural location and its farm programming) |
| Slogan | "The Home of The Golden Sound" We Cherish This Music (unofficial callsign meaning) |
| Frequency | 92.9 mHz(1959-1974) (now WGTZ) 1130 kHz (1981-2004) (now WEDI) |
| Format |
Community radio Beautiful music with middle of the road, Adult Standards, big band and occasional soft adult contemporary |
| ERP | 25,000 watts (FM) 250 watts,daytime (AM) |
| Affiliations |
Mutual Broadcasting System CNN Radio Agri Broadcasting Network Brownfield Network Ohio News Network Sports Ohio Network Motor Racing Network Performance Racing Network USA Radio Network |
| Owner | Western Ohio Broadcasting Service Inc. (Stanley T. Coning- founder,station manager and engineer) |
WCTM were the call letters assigned to an FM radio station, and later an AM station, both licensed to Eaton, Preble County, Ohio, United States.
WCTM (92.9 FM) was originally a station built by Stan Coning and three partners in 1959. The first tower for the FM station was purchased from 700 WLW, and was 150 ft. tall. The tower was originally three separate 50 ft AM tower/antennas, used to keep the 500 kilowatt signal of WLW, allowed only during the 1930s and 1940s, out of Canada. The station aired an "easy listening/beautiful music" format. The original FM station's studios, transmitter and tower were located at 505 North Barron Street in Eaton where Coning beforehand originally owned an appliance service business. For a time in the early-to-mid-1960s, WCTM was on the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Network and also aired play-by-play of area high school football and basketball games. In the 1960s, the station provided news and features from Eaton, Preble County and the surrounding area and also aired news and programming from the Mutual Radio Network. WCTM-FM was sold in the early 1970s to Great Trails Broadcasting, which was then the owner of WING in Dayton, WIZE in Springfield and WCOL-AM/FM in Columbus. Great Trails spent a great deal of time and money moving the station's tower to better serve the Dayton market. It became WJAI, continuing the easy-listening format until 1979, when it switched to a country music format. The station then changed to Big Band/Nostalgia/Adult Standards in 1982 before becoming WGTZ ("Z-93"), a Top 40 station, in 1984. That format switched in November 2007 to variety hits "Fly 92.9" (a local version of the "Jack FM" musical potpourri format which usually uses no air personalities).
After the FM station was sold, Coning focused on acquiring an AM license (he had originally wanted to build an AM station, but the lack of available frequencies led him to build the FM station first). After a 12-year struggle to obtain a frequency, WCTM (1130 AM) went on the air in 1981 as a daytime-only station and picked up where the FM left off a decade earlier, playing beautiful music. The studios and transmitter were located east of Eaton in an open field behind an abandoned drive-in theater (since razed) in the rural Preble County community of Glenwood (aka "Ransom" on some online highway maps near West Alexandria, which was the station's mailing address).
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Wikipedia