WPTF-AM 680 History
Though not the area's first radio station (that honor belongs to NC State's now-defunct WLAC), WPTF is the area's oldest continuous broadcaster, having signed on September 22nd, 1924 as WFBQ, a 50-watt station at 1190 AM. William A. Wynne of Wynne Radio Company later bought the station and changed the call letters to WRCO. Wynne boosted the power as well, to 100 watts. By 1927, the power was again boosted to 250 watts, this time from a new dial position, 1380 AM. That same year, Durham Life Insurance Company bought the station and changed the call letters to WPTF for "We Protect The Family", the company's slogan. WPTF moved to 560 on the dial in 1928, and moved again to their present 680 by 1931. In 1941, WPTF boosted their power to 50,000 watts fulltime from a three-tower array off NC 54 near present-day Interstate 40. WPTF-FM signed on in 1949 at 94.5 FM (later 94.7 FM) from the tallest of these three towers. The two stations operated from studios at 410 S. Salisbury Street in Downtown Raleigh. With the dawning of the television age in the early 1950s, Durham Life went head-to-head with crosstown competitor and WRAL/WRAL-FM owner Capitol Broadcasting as both tried to win a license to build a TV station in Raleigh on the city's newly-alloted VHF frequency, channel 5. Though Durham Life was the larger of the two firms, Capitol won the license and WRAL-TV was born in 1956. In the days of radio network programming, WPTF was an NBC affiliate, and later switched to a full service format with news, talk and adult contemporary music. Durham Life again took a shot at television, this time successfully, in 1977 with the purchase of Durham-based NBC affiliate WRDU-TV (a nine-year-old UHF station which had assumed the channel 28 frequency abandoned by the demise of the Raleigh News and Observer's WNAO-TV in 1959). Durham Life changed channel 28's call letters to WPTF-TV and eventually consolidated the new TV station under the same roof as WPTF radio and WQDR at new studios on Highwoods Boulevard in North Raleigh. In 1991, Durham Life sold its broadcasting arm, with WPTF-TV (now UPN affiliate WRDC) Nashville, Tennessee-based investment firm FSF. WPTF radio initially went to a group of investors known as First State Communications which included Don Curtis. Curtis bought all of WQDR. The investment team fell through and Curtis ended up with a controlling interest in WPTF, which formed the base for his Curtis Media Group. WPTF's 50,000-watt signal is non-directional during the day, and it's nighttime signal is highly directional to the south, with reception reportedly reaching as far as Caracas, Venezuela; to the north, WPTF's nighttime signal barely reaches Virginia, a mere 50 miles away.
WPTF-AM 680 Gallery
- A QSL card from WPTF, year unknown.
- The art-deco style transmitter building of WPTF, located along NC 54 West in Cary, NC.
- The WPTF towers along NC 54 West in Cary.
- On January 1st, 1942, the only Rose Bowl not held in Pasadena, California was held in Durham at what's now Wallace Wade Stadium, due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a few weeks before. In this photo, Duke Coach Wallace Wade speaks to the media, which includes WPTF.
- An audio clip of WPTF's coverage of damage from Hurricane Hazel in 1954, 4:26.
- Cover art from a phonograph produced for WPTF's 50th anniversary in 1974.
- Part one of the phonograph produced for WPTF's 50th anniversary in 1974, which was posted on YouTube.
- Part two of the phonograph produced for WPTF's 50th anniversary in 1974, from YouTube.
- This WPTF promotional piece from the late 1980s shows the WPTF personalities of that era.
- The WPTF promotional piece above also included a programming schedule on the reverse side...an interesting loook at the station's schedule just prior to the station's transition from full service format of adult contemporary music and neighborly local chat to the news/talk format familiar today.
- A 1996 aircheck of WPTF posted at Bostonradio.org.
- In 2003, Fybush.com's "Tower Site of the Week" visited the WPTF site and made this photograph.
