City Mashpee, Massachusetts Branding Y-101 Frequency 101.1 MHz | Broadcast area Cape Cod Slogan The Beat of Cape Cod | |
 | ||
First air date February 12, 1987
(as WFAL) | ||
WHYA (101.1 FM)—branded Y101—is a CodComm, Inc. owned commercial FM radio station licensed to Mashpee, Massachusetts. The station's studios are in downtown Hyannis and its transmitter is located in Barnstable. It serves the Cape Cod radio market with a pop/CHR format with a rhythmic lean. WHYA airs the nationally syndicated Open House Party on Saturday and Sunday nights. Station owner John Garabedian, hosted Open House Party until January 2017.
History
See WFRQ for a full history of the 101.1 frequency. This article covers the history of WHYA from April 2013 forward.On April 1, 2013, at 5:00 p.m., WHYA broke away from its simulcast with 93.5 WFRQ and began stunting with an automated countdown. A male text-to-speech voice (Microsoft Sam to be exact) repeated a sequence of counting backward in the format of "T minus x days, x hours, x minutes, x seconds" (beginning with 2 days, 18 hours).
A rotating list of statements was also inserted approximately every fifteen seconds. The statements ranged from informing listeners that Frank FM had moved to 93.5 and doubled its power, to random and sometimes amusing quotes from movies, songs and current events. Occasionally, some statements also hinted about two of the on-air personalities that would eventually be on the new station, including "Who's Steve McVie?" and "What's a Jackson Blue?"
On April 4, 2013, at 11:00 a.m., the stunt ended with a message by radio personality John Garabedian to launch the new Rhythmic CHR-formatted Y101. Y101's first song was "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO. The new format filled a 4-year void that the former WRZE "96-3 The Rose" (now WEII) left when it switched to sports radio on March 25, 2009. Ironically, CodComm's founding fathers John Garabedian and Steve McVie both played a role in the former WRZE. Garabedian placed the original 96.3 transmission facility on the air in the 1970s (as WGTF), while McVie was the last on-air personality heard on WRZE.
On August 20, 2013, CodComm submitted a license application with the FCC to cover an outstanding construction permit originally filed on July 17, 2012. This completed a move of the WHYA transmission facility from Mashpee to Barnstable at the tower of sister station WPXC. The change included dropping power from 6 kW to 2.9 kW, but raising its antenna from 272' to 463' above average terrain.