City Beavercreek, Ohio Branding Alt 103.9 First air date June 18, 1962 | Broadcast area Dayton metro area Slogan Dayton's Alternative | |
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Frequency 103.9 MHz (also on HD Radio) | ||
WZDA (103.9 FM) is a commercial alternative rock radio station licensed to Beavercreek, Ohio, serving the Dayton metro area, owned by iHeartMedia, Inc.. The WZDA studios are located in Dayton, while the station transmitter resides in the neighboring suburb of Moraine. Besides a standard analog transmission, WZDA broadcasts over two HD Radio channels, and is available online via iHeartRadio.
Contents
History
WZDA began as WHBM on June 18, 1962 under license to Xenia, Ohio; the WHBM call letters stood for "Harry B. Miller", the station's owner and general manager. WHBM was the FM sister station to AM station WELX in Xenia and WERM-FM in Wapakoneta. WELX-AM and WHBM-FM began operations in the late 1960s with a middle of the road format, then switching in the early 1970s to progressive jazz and soul gospel. WHBM_FM, began operations first in 1962 from the second floor above "The Dutch Oven" bakery on North Detroit St., in Xenia. WELX-AM began operations several years later. Both stations eventually operated from the WELX transmitter site adjacent to U.S. Route 35 off June Drive in Xenia. Both stations miraculously survived the April 3, 1974 tornado which ravaged Xenia and nearby Beavercreek. However, a fire destroyed the small studio/transmitter building around 1977, thus WELX and WHBM both went silent.
Both stations along with WERM were sold in 1978 to separate owners with WELX (now southern gospel WGNZ) owned by L&D Broadcasting and WHBM sold to Ohio Broadcast Associates becoming Top-40 formatted WDJX, using the "Xenia/Fairborn/Beavercreek" top of hour ID giving FM competition to Dayton's WING (AM). In 1982 WDJX moved its studios (and eventually its city of license) to Beavercreek, later becoming Hot A/C-formatted "Majic 104" WYMJ-FM. In 1989 WYMJ was purchased by Alan Gray's Dayton Radio, Inc and switched to "Oldies 104".
In the early-1990s it switched to WRVF "The River" with a country format before being overshadowed by the former WHIO-FM becoming WHKO "K-99.1 FM", then switching in late August 1995 to "103.9 The Edge", WXEG introducing the Alternative format to Dayton and moving the studios to Dayton's Historic Oregon District. During this time, WXEG with sister stations WONE (AM) and WTUE (FM) went through several ownerships after being sold by Group One to Stoner Broadcasting, American Radio Systems, Entercom and finally Jacor before its merger with Clear Channel.
On January 1, 1998, "103.9 The Edge" became "103.9 The X", retaining the Alternative format but rebranding due to a dispute with a consultant who owned the trademark of "The Edge".
The WDJX callsign has since been in use since 1985 by a CHR-formatted station in Louisville, Kentucky at 99.7 FM, owned by Alpha Media, which happens to own stations in Dayton.
By 2010, WXEG changed formats to active rock as it was moved to the Mediabase active rock panel, but by 2015 it returned to the Alternative panel after phasing out the harder rock product.
On August 28th, 2015, WXEG completed the move back to alternative rock, rebranding as "Alt 103.9". The station changed its call sign to the current WZDA on September 28, 2015.
WZDA in HD
The station started broadcasting in HD-Radio on February 2, 2006. As of March 2007,
Concerts
WXEG held an annual X-Fest every year from 1996-2012. The X-Fest was cancelled in 2012 just weeks before the event was to take place and has not taken place since.