Radio station in Claremont, New Hampshire
WHDQ (106.1 FM, "Q106") is a radio station broadcasting a classic rock format. Licensed to Claremont, New Hampshire, United States, the station serves the Lebanon-Rutland-White River Junction area. The station is owned by Jeffrey Shapiro's Great Eastern Radio.[2] The station's transmitter is located atop Mount Ascutney in Vermont. WHDQ's signal is also broadcast over a translator—W294AB (106.7 FM) in Hanover, New Hampshire—and a booster—WHDQ-FM1 in Rutland, Vermont.
History
Q106 has arguably one of the richest and most colorful histories of any radio station in northern New England. The station went through a couple of formats. The station first went through a couple of formats. The station first went under both AOR and MOR formats from the early 1970s until 1983, when the station flipped to a Top 40/CHR format. For almost ten years in total beginning in 1983, it was the area's dominant CHR powerhouse as both WECM and WHDQ until March 1993 when the station dropped CHR and flipped back to AOR. Q106 was one of the first radio stations to carry the Imus in the Morning show, and one of the first stations to reinstate the show upon Imus' return to the airwaves in December 2007.
Q106 is the first FM station in New Hampshire to sign on the air as WTSV-FM at 102.1 in 1948 as an affiliate of the Granite State Network. The station used the call sign WECM from 1972 to 1985 while broadcasting from 106.1 FM and went under the names of "Stereo 106" and "M-106". During that time it simulcasted some shows on former Top 40/NBC Radio Network/CBS Radio station WTSV 1230 AM and was located on Washington Street in Claremont, next to the AM radio tower.
WHDQ, along with 29 other stations in northern New England formerly owned by Nassau Broadcasting Partners, was purchased at a bankruptcy auction by Carlisle Capital Corporation, a company controlled by Bill Binnie (owner of WBIN-TV in Derry), on May 22, 2012. The station, and 12 of the other stations, were then acquired by Vertical Capital Partners, controlled by Jeff Shapiro.[3][4] The deal was completed on November 30, 2012.[5] The Vertical Capital Partners stations were transferred to Shapiro's existing Great Eastern Radio group on January 1, 2013.[6][7]
