History

The founder of WQXR, John Vincent Lawless Hogan, was one of the abundant number of pioneers of video transmission via radio waves in the late 1920s. He began experimenting with the transmission of images on March 26, 1929, when he began an experimental broadcasting station on 2100kc. It was called W2XR: the "W" indicated that the station was east of the Mississippi river; at the time a "2" indicated that a station was educational rather than commercial; and "XR" was an abbreviation for "experimental radio." In 1933, the Federal Radio Commission (now the FCC) gave permission for W2XR to use double-wide channels on 1530, 1550, and 1570 AM. Hogan decided to supplement his experimental transmissions of images with classical music. The station soon developed a following of listeners who either didn't know about or weren't interested in the video transmission (many new radios had 1550 at the end of their dials). Hogan gave up his video transmission experiments, and a well-respected radio station soon developed out of what he had built.

Hogan partnered with Elliot Sanger in 1936, and together they turned W2XR into a commercial venture. On December 3, 1936, (check date, I'm not sure if it's accurate) W2XR became WQXR and moved its studios to 730 5th Ave. in Manhattan. Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968), who was the son-in-law of New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs and the head of the Times at the time, helped them turn WQXR into a leading station for both news and music.

WQXR maintained its AM station until 1992, when the AM station became WQEW, "The Home Of American Popular Standards," (still owned by the Times). In 1998 ABC/Disney bought the station and it became WQEW Radio Disney.

W2XR was the first AM station in New York to experiment with broadcasting in stereo. During some of their live concerts, they used two microphones positioned six feet apart. The microphone on the right led to their AM feed, and the one on the left to their FM feed, so a listener could position two radios six feet apart, one tuned to WQXR AM and the other to WQXR FM, and listen in stereo.

Broadcasting Information

Frequency: 96.3 mHz
Maximum Power: 6.0 kW Horizontal; 6.0 kW Vertical (Equivalent to 50,000 watts at 500 feet)
Antenna Site: Empire State Building, NYC
Auxiliary Site: West Orange, NJ
Broadcast range: c.90 miles

Translators: Asbury Park, NJ – 96.7 FM
Poughkeepsie – 103.7 FM

See Also

WQXR.com
WQXR's Profile
The New York Times Company Investor Relations: Press Release: WQXR Celebrates Three Notable Anniversaries in 2004
New York Daily News: Big Town Songbook: WQXR and how it got that way
Sanger, Elliot (1973). Rebel in Radio: The Story of WQXR. Hastings House.