WHPT
 |
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| City | Sarasota, Florida |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Sarasota, Tampa Bay Areas |
| Branding | 102.5 The Bone |
| Slogan | Real. Raw. Radio. |
| Frequency | 102.5 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | November 15, 1960 (as WYAK) |
| Format |
Hot Talk HD2: Alternative rock (WSUN simulcast) |
| ERP | 100,000 watts |
| HAAT | 503 meters |
| Class | C |
| Facility ID | 51986 |
| Callsign meaning | W THe PoinT (former branding) |
| Former callsigns | WYAK (1960-1967) WSAF-FM (1967-1973) WQSR (1973-1979) WSRZ (1979-1983) WAVE (1983-1988) WHVE (1988-1991) |
| Owner |
Cox Radio (Cox Radio, Inc.) |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | theboneonline.com |
WHPT (currently known as "102.5 The Bone") is a Cox Radio station located in the Sarasota, Tampa Bay, and St. Petersburg Florida areas, but can be heard as far south as Fort Myers and Naples, from its transmitter near SR 70, near the northeastern corner of Sarasota County. While the station's license and transmitter (27° 24' 31" N, 82° 14' 59" W) is based within the Sarasota radio market, its studios are based in St. Petersburg with the other Cox stations, and focuses on the Tampa Bay radio market.
WHPT is a Hot Talk format; its HD2 subchannel plays a simulcast of alternative rock-formatted WSUN 97.1 FM Holiday ("97X").
The station signed on the air in 1960 as WYAK. In 1967, the callsign was changed to WSAF-FM.
In 1973, the Sarasota Radio Company purchased WSAF and changed its format to the beautiful music format and its callsign to WQSR. Its new call letters reflected company president, Edward Rogers', philosophy: QSR: Quality Stereo Radio. After a somewhat schizophrenic existence for several years, playing Beautiful Music from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Album Oriented Rock from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., the station finally pulled the plug on the daytime format when ratings and advertising sales clearly indicated the community's preference for rock and roll [1]. During part of this period, the station added quadraphonic sound, and promoted itself as "Quad One-Oh-Two-And-A-Half". The free-form music format would eventually suffer challenges from other formats that eroded its Arbitron ratings in the critical 25-34 and 25-54 demographics.
QSR On-air Staff:
Cosmos Broadcasting (now Raycom Media) purchased WQSR, on Labor Day weekend in 1979, and changed its call letters to WSRZ. In 1980, Cosmos brought in Dain L. Schult with Radioactivity, Inc. who acted initially as a consultant for the station, and instituted a Mainstream format at the station, which was a hybrid AOR/CHR approach, with specialty programming like Jazz on the side. It was Schult's idea to come up with the new moniker for the station: The Music Wave. The on-air personalities identified the station with "The Music Wave, one oh two and a half". Schult eventually became the station's Program Director and afternoon on-air personality.
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Wikipedia