WVAR

WVAR

City	Richwood, West Virginia
Broadcast area	Richwood, West Virginia Craigsville, West Virginia Summersville, West Virginia
Branding	"The Mighty 1490"
Slogan	"Good Time Rock 'n' Roll"
Frequency	600 kHz
First air date	November 16, 1957 (as WMNF)
Format	Oldies/Classic rock
Power	1,000 watts (daytime) 55 watts (nighttime)
Class	D
Facility ID	54372
Callsign meaning	West VirginiA Radio
Owner	Summit Media Broadcasting, LLC
Sister stations	WAFD, WDBS, WKQV, WSGB
Website	WVAR/WSGB Online

WVAR is an American radio station located in Richwood, West Virginia that plays an oldies format.

The station also carries West Virginia University basketball and Richwood High School sports. While it simulcasts sister station WSGB full-time, WVAR breaks away for sports broadcasts.

History

As WMNF

WVAR first went on the air on November 16, 1957, and first broadcast at 1280 AM under the call letters WMNF. The original owner was Royal Broadcasting Company, of which Herman Dotson served as president and Art Grunewald as general manager. Studios were located along Cemetery Road in Richwood. By 1959, the call letters were changed to WVAR, as they remain today.

As WVAR

On January 1, 1965, WVAR was sold to R & S Broadcasting. Carl Gainer was the new company president, and Virgil Graves became General Manager. In 1968, WVAR moved from its dial position of 1280 kHz to 600 kHz. The station retained its daytime-only broadcast hours and output power of 1,000 watts.

In 1991, WVAR moved its studios and offices to 713 Main Street in Summersville, but would maintain a local presence in Richwood at 2 Rhododendron Drive, formerly known as Cemetery Road. On December 24, 1996, after more than 30 years of ownership, WVAR was sold by R & S Broadcasting to J & K Broadcasting. The ownership change also resulted in the pairing of an FM sister station, WAFD, which had gone on the air earlier that year with a southern and country gospel format.

In mid-February 2003, an ice storm that ravaged the southern part of West Virginia toppled the WVAR broadcasting antenna atop Hinkle Mountain which overlooks Richwood. In the following summer the station and its owner raised funds to erect a new antenna. The station was closed with a dark license while funds were sought to replace it.

On March 13, 2007, J & K Broadcasting, Inc. sold WVAR to Summit Media Broadcasting, LLC for $1.24 million in a transaction that included sister FM station WAFD in Webster Springs. Summit Media also owns WDBS-FM and WSGB-AM. Studios were moved to 202 Back Fork Street in Webster Springs.

On May 15, 2007, WVAR dropped its country format and began simulcasting sister WSGB-AM's oldies format as "The Mighty 1490". That October, Summit Media filed an application with the FCC to waive main studio requirements for WVAR, which would allow on-air operations to be co-located with WSGB and other stations in Summit Media's ownership group.

Two months later, another application was filed informing the FCC that Summit Media had taken the station silent due to Summit Media's inability to successfully meet FCC-required staffing needs at the Webster Springs studio. The FCC granted the application to keep the station silent in January of 2008 until granting permission for the studio waiver later that year. However, Summit Media kept the station silent for another year due to technical renovations being delayed due to the lack of available workforce.

Translator

In November 2009, Summit Media filed an application to rebroadcast WVAR's signal over FM translator W251AY, licensed to Birch River. The translator, licensed to operate at 98.1 mHz, broadcasts at 250 watts at a height of 256 m above average terrain. The translator, which has been on the air since 2004, had been previously used to rebroadcast the signal of sister FM station WDBS.

External links

Query the FCC's AM station database for WVAR

Radio-Locator Information on WVAR

Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WVAR

Radio stations in the East-Central West Virginia market

By FM frequency	89.3 89.7 90.5 91.3 91.9 92.9 95.7 97.1 100.3 101.7 101.7 105.5 107.7

By AM frequency	600 1370 1490

By callsign	WAFD WCWV WDBS WKQV WMLJ WSGB WSJE WSWW-FM WVAR WVGV WVMR WVMR-FM WVRW WVWS WXTH-LP WYAP-LP

West Virginia radio markets Beckley Bluefield Charleston Huntington Morgantown–Clarksburg–Fairmont Parkersburg Wheeling Other West Virginia radio regions Cumberland, MD East-Central Eastern Panhandle Elkins–Buckhannon–Weston Kingwood Southern West-Central Winchester, VA See also List of radio stations in West Virginia

Oldies radio stations in the state of West Virginia

By callsign	WBBD – Wheeling WCBC – Keyser WCLG – Morgantown WDMX – Vienna WELD – Fisher WFSP-FM – Kingwood WKAZ – Charleston WSGB – Sutton WUKL – Bethlehem WVAR – Richwood

See also adult contemporary classic hits college country news/talk NPR oldies religious rock sports top 40 urban other radio stations in West Virginia See also Oldies Classic Hits

Coordinates: 38°13′50″N 80°32′49″W / 38.23056°N 80.54694°W / 38.23056; -80.54694

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