Outside WPAZ's Broadcast Lodge on Maugers Mill Road in Pottstown.
POTTSTOWN PA – After broadcasting hundreds of Pottsgrove High School sports games over a series of years, including those of the Falcons football team’s just-ended 2009 championship season, Pottstown radio station WPAZ-AM abruptly signed off the air Thursday morning (Dec. 10, 2009), apparently for good under its current ownership.
Great Scott Broadcasting, which started WPAZ in 1952 as the first in its chain of several radio station properties, closed it down for financial reasons. Responding to media inquiries, company President Mitchell Scott said his company would focus its efforts on more profitable stations it owns in a 100-mile area that covers portions of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.
Great Scott also owns contemporary rock music stations WZEB-FM in Ocean View DE and WZBH in Georgetown DE; country station WKHI-FM in Fruitland MD; hip-hop and rhythm and blues station WOCQ-FM in Berlin MD; and classic rock station WGBG-FM in Seaford DE. WPAZ was its only remaining signal on the AM dial.
WPAZ’s studio is located in what the company’s founders, Herb and Faye Scott, affectionately referred to as “Broadcast Lodge,” at 224 Maugers Mill Rd., Pottstown PA. In addition to local programming and sports, WPAZ played “rock-and-roll oldies” music on AM frequency 1370.
In a 2004 interview re-published on Great Scott’s website, Mitchell Scott said the company had previously sold other stations it owned in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey so it could target “the Delmarva area, seeing it as a fast-growing market with lots of potential for growth.”
Scott was said to be looking for a buyer for WPAZ.
Under rules of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and other broadcast licenses, WPAZ can remain off-air for a period of up to 10 days (until Sunday, Dec. 20) before being required to file a request to the agency for what is known as a “special temporary authority” to remain silent. The reason for the silence must be “beyond the control of the licensee,” according to the FCC.
The FCC’s lists of silent AM and FM radio stations, updated as of Dec. 1 (2009), includes dozens of call signs. Six are in Pennsylvania.
Photos from WFMZ-TV
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I loved that station. I loved the the people and the lodge. I worked there for a decade. It is so hard to imagine it gone for good.
My radio is tuned to 1370 AM. There is just a lot of ‘dead air’.
I’m with you on this issue mogallant. I worked there 8+ years P-T sometimes taking your spot as you know. I am a resident of Lower Pottsgrove, a Local Resident. I will miss the listeners calling in for request when I had the oportunity to play music for them eventhough I was suppose to stick to a strict orderly Format.
In addition, it was a fun thing for me to produce Local Sports and Community Events with Ross, Paul, Rick, Coaches Marty Moore & Scott Furman, Jay, and some others who passed through WPAZ. Jim Brownback has a Special way of bringing Radio sounding like it was back in the day “The Golden Age of Radio”.
I enjoyed working with EVERYONE there at WPAZ and I hope that it comes back soon. I hope that the new owner brings us ALL back to work for them if we haven’t found a new Station or Career. WPAZ leaves a BIG HOLE for information in the Tri-County Area especially for Community Weather Related Announcements, Local Sports, Local News, and the Church of the Week Service for Shut-Inns.
Also, we had some Air Personalities who started at WPAZ like Jack Pyle, Mike Reinford, the late “Diamond” Jim Nettleton, Dr. Don Rose, and the Voice of the Philadelphia Eagles plus, owner of WBCB, Levittown, Merril Reese. I would like to Thank everyone for their support over the years and I hope to be back somewhere in Radio. Yes, I have health issues, nothing to be ashamed of because that’s life. This was something for me to take my mind off of things and to Help Provide me with some extra Health Insurance Coverage.
Thanks for Listening through the years folks!
“D.J. Andy”
PS. I forgot to mention Jim Loshnowsky, the Host of “the Friday Night Football Blitz”. Maybe one day we will work together again Too!!
“D.J. Andy”