WASH (FM)

WASH

City	Washington, D.C.
Broadcast area	Washington, D.C.
Branding	97.1 WASH-FM
Slogan	Washington's Variety of the 80s, 90s, & Today (Year round)/ Washington, D.C.'s Christmas Station (Mid-November–Christmas)
Frequency	97.1 MHz (also on HD Radio) 97.1-HD2 for Oldies
First air date	1948
Format	Adult Contemporary Christmas music (Nov.-Dec.)
ERP	17,500 watts
HAAT	242 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	70933
Callsign meaning	WASHington, D.C. or George WASHington
Owner	iHeartMedia, Inc. (AMFM Radio Licenses, L.L.C.)
Sister stations	WBIG, WIHT, WMZQ, WWDC
Webcast	Listen Live HD2: Listen Live
Website	washfm.iheart.com

WASH (97.1 FM) is an iHeartMedia, Inc. radio station located in Washington, D.C.. Known on-air as "Wash-FM", the station has an adult contemporary format. The station also streams its broadcast on iHeartRadio. The station's studios are located in Rockville, Maryland and the transmitter site is in DC's Tenleytown district.

WASH has been a soft adult contemporary station in one form or another since the 1970s. For a few years in the early 1980s, the station attempted to do a Top 40 / CHR format (publicized by the station's "WASH with the Stars" TV ad campaign) which had no success and the station later returned to their original Soft AC format. Until late 2013, the station played disco music and related songs (mostly 1970s Top 40) in a program known as "Jammin' Saturday Night" from 7 pm to midnight. After the 2013 holiday season, the program was revamped to play songs from the 1980s under the name "All 80's Saturday Night".

The station plays exclusively Christmas music from mid-November through Christmas Day (plus on July 25 for "Christmas in July") and calls itself "Washington's Official Christmas Station" during the season.

WASH-FM broadcasts in the HD digital hybrid format.^[1]

History

WASH-FM was an early FM station licensed to Washington, DC in 1944. Original owner, Everett L Dillard. WASH-FM and its owner, Dillard were early pioneers in FM “networking” and Stereo broadcasting.

Networking

During the 1940s Dillard also headed the Washington-based Continental FM Network, a 52-station network. The Continental Network was Dillard’s & Edwin Howard Armstrong's creation to get some content for Armstrong’s Alpine, NJ, station. Dillard's WASH fed a 15 kHz phone line to Alpine. Some of the content was WASH's evening classical record program. The network “connected” Dillard’s WASH-FM to stations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York (as far west as Buffalo), Connecticut, Massachusetts and ending at Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. Many of the stations picked up the broadcast from the station "down the line" and rebroadcast it, thus allowing the next station "up the line" to pick up the broadcast and forward it along.

Early stereo

WASH-FM also conducted early experiments with stereo broadcasts. One system was to broadcast one channel over WASH-FM, and the other channel on another of Dillard’s stations, WDON. (1540 Kc Wheaton, MD)

Dillard sells WASH-FM

Dillard sold WASH-FM in 1968 to Metromedia, who moved the studios and transmitter from Wheaton, MD to Metromedia’s Wisconsin Ave. headquarters. The transmitter was moved to Metromedia’s WTTG-TV’s transmitter facility and broadcast from the WTTG-TV tower.

$1,000,000 giveaway

In the 1970s, the station gained notoriety for its million dollar give-away contest, both because of the amount of money involved and because of the difficulty the station encountered in finding a winner who met all of the contest's requirements.

External links

Query the FCC's FM station database for WASH

Radio-Locator information on WASH

Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WASH

References

↑ http://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=8 HD Radio Guide for Washington D.C.

Radio stations in the Washington, D.C. market

By AM frequency	Washington, D.C. 630 980 1120 1260 1340 1450 1500 Maryland 540 570 900 950 1030 1050 1160 1540 1560 1580 1600 Northern Virginia 730 780 920 1190 1220 1250 1310 1390 1460 1480

By FM frequency	Washington, D.C. 88.5 89.3 90.1 90.9 93.9 96.3 97.1 98.7 99.5 100.3 101.1 103.5 107.3 Maryland 88.1 91.9 92.7 94.3 94.7 95.5 99.1 99.9 102.3 104.1 107.9 Northern Virginia 87.7 89.9 94.3 96.7 97.5 97.7 104.3 105.1 105.9 106.7 107.7

NOAA Weather Radio	162.45 162.55

By callsign	KHB36 W249BE WACA WAMU WASH WAVA WAVA-FM WBIG-FM WBQH WCRW WCSP-FM WCTN WDCH-FM WDCN-LP WDCT WERA-LP WETA WFAX WFED WFRE WGOP WGTS WHUR-FM WIAD WIHT WILC WJEV-LP WJFK WJFK-FM WKDV WKIK WKIK-FM WKYS WLXE WLZL WMAL WMAL-FM WMET WMMJ WMUC-FM WMZQ-FM WNG736 WOL WOWD-LP WPER WPFW WPGC-FM WPRS-FM WPWC WRCW WRQX WSPZ WTEM WTNT WTOP-FM WURA WUST WWDC WWGB WWRC WWWT-FM WWXT WWXX WYCB WZHF

Defunct Stations	WCAP WGMS WTWP WWZZ WGTB WHFS (FM)

Satellite radio local traffic/weather XM Channel 214 Sirius Channel 152 Washington, D.C. metro markets Frederick, MD Fredericksburg, VA Baltimore See also List of radio stations in Washington, D.C. List of radio stations in Virginia List of radio stations in Maryland

iHeartMedia

Corporate officers	Bob Pittman (Chairman/CEO)

Board of directors	Lowry Mays Irving Azoff B. J. "Red" McCombs J. C. Watts John H. Williams

Radio stations	List of radio stations owned by iHeartMedia

Radio networks	Fox News Radio Fox Sports Radio NBC News Radio Premiere Networks Premium Choice Total Traffic and Weather Network

Miscellaneous	Clear Channel Outdoor Clear Channel UK iHeartRadio List of programming syndicated by iHeartMedia Mediabase Radio Computing Services

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