City Emory, Virginia Frequency 90.7 FM MHz | Branding "90.7 WEHC" First air date November 15, 1994 | |
Broadcast area Abingdon, Virginia
Marion, Virginia Slogan "Your College and Community Station" | ||
WEHC is a Public Radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Emory, Virginia, serving the Abingdon/Marion area. WEHC is owned and operated by Emory and Henry College.
Contents
History
The original incarnation of WEHC was a 100-watt AM station, which signed on October 24, 1929 on 1370 kHz. This WEHC was the second station to go into operation in the entire state of Virginia, behind WRVA in Richmond. The station was programmed mostly by students and represented to the FCC by faculty member W. Byron Brown. After three years of operation, the Great Depression prompted the college to sell to Brown for $5,000 (equivalent to $87,768 in 2016) in the fall of 1932. The station went off the air that December as Brown moved the physical facilities to Charlottesville, Virginia, where it is still in operation as WCHV.
The current WEHC, which is legally unrelated to the original station, was founded in 1992. The original station kept the WEHC callsign until 1935, but it was never reused and remained available for the new station.
New transmitter and tower
WEHC worked with US Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) to raise the $187,932 needed to build a brand new 199 foot tower and increase the station's power from 500 watts to nearly 10,000. On October 27, 2009, WEHC turned on their new transmitter, dramatically increasing their power from 500 to 8,700 watts.