WQTW

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WQTW-AM
City of license	Latrobe, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Branding	"AM 16Q"
Frequency	1570 kHz
First air date	1952
Format	Oldies, Ethnic
Power	1000 Watts (day)
Class	D
Owner	Ludwig Stanley Wall (dba The Wall Group)
Website	http://www.musicpower104.com/

WQTW is an American radio station, licensed to the city of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. WQTW operates at 1570 kHz with a maximum power of 1,000 watts day, 220 watts night. The station is owned by L. Stanley Wall, who also owns and operates WLSW-FM in Connellsville (licensed to Scottdale), Pennsylvania.

[edit] History

[edit] First in Latrobe

WQTW first signed on the air in 1952, making it the second AM station to come on the air in Westmoreland County, as WHJB (now WKHB) had been the first in 1938.

[edit] Down in Flames

WQTW experienced a major setback on New Year's Eve of 1982, when its studios and offices were destroyed in a fire, leaving the station dark for about a year and a half [1], and keeping local firefighters busy for about six hours that day.

The license and tower, being all that was left from the station, were then advertised for sale. Stan Wall, owner of WLSW-FM, 15 miles south of Latrobe, purchased the remains of the station for $66,000 in April 1984.

[edit] WQTW Returns

Upon purchasing the station, WQTW had to be returned to the air quickly in order to avoid forfeiture of the FCC license. A double-wide mobile home was purchased and parked at WQTW's transmitter site on George Street in Derry Township, just on the outskirts of Latrobe. The station returned to the air less than six months later with a full-service format of middle-of-the road and oldies music, with polka music on the weekends.

A construction permit was granted for the station in 1989 to move down the dial to 880 AM (still daytime-only but with almost double the coverage), but that permit was abandoned the following year when the station was granted nighttime power of 220 watts.

In 1990, the station began simulcasting WLSW full-time over WQTW. Specialty programs of high school football, weekend oldies and polka programming remained independent of WLSW.

Since 1990, WQTW has been leased to two other operators through time-brokerage agreements, though the formats they adopted were short lived. For a brief period in the mid-90's, the station affiliated with the Prime Sports Satellite Network, in an attempt to support the growing audience for all-sports radio.

[edit] WQTW 2008

WQTW remains a simulcast outlet of WLSW. On weekend, WQTW's airs specialty weekend programming and high school sports broadcasts.

[edit] Sources

• Disk jockey and station owner Stan Wall shaped the region's radio[2]

[edit] External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WQTW
• Radio Locator Information on WQTW
• Query Arbitron's AM station database for WQTW

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