Behind the “Yankee Building”—where John Shepard III originally built W1XER/W39B (43.9 Boston) at an old Weather Bureau facility—is the tower of WPKQ (103.7C North Conway). The station was originally licensed to Berlin, and as WMOU-FM had its transmitter site down in the Androscoggin River valley. Its owners realized that the station would be much more valuable if it were moved to Mount Washington—even with a directional antenna required to protect co-channel WKNE-FM in Keene. The owners of the Keene station fought the move, but were ultimately unsuccessful, and WZPK “Peak 103.7” was born. The station was later sold to Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting (now part of Citadel Communications) and became a simulcast of the N.H. Seacoast's market-leading country station, WOKQ (97.5B Dover), with the new callsign WPKQ. Citadel requested a change in community of license to North Conway, and established studios in downtown North Conway to serve as legal main stdios for both stations. (WHOM is run out of Citadel's Portland cluster studios, 65 miles away. WPKQ's studios in Dover are about 75 miles away, but the North Conway studio serves as a sales and production office, as well as hosting the WOKQ morning show a few times a year.)
Copyright 2003, Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2003-08-23.