WVOT

Infobox Radio station
name = WVOT


city = Wilson, North Carolina
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frequency = 1420 kHz
format = Urban contemporary gospel
power = 1000 Watts (day)
500 Watts (night)
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WVOT (1420 AM) is a radio station licensed to and located in Wilson, North Carolina, USA. The FCC assigned frequency is 1420 kHz. The station operates at 1000 Watts non-directional by day, and 500 watts directional at night, largely on a north-facing axis.

Programming

The current format is urban contemporary gospel. Past formats have included talk, Carolina beach music, oldies, adult contemporary, contemporary hit radio, and block programming.

History

The original studio/transmitter building was located across from the Wilson city operation center on East Herring Avenue. The small brick and frame building held the business office, advertising office, production studio, news room, "on-air" control-room/studio, and transmitter. Though space was limited and spartan, the studio provided a venue for interviewing a variety of celebrities, including Tiny Tim.

The studio was also the starting point for many broadcasting personalities. Past air personnel of WVOT include Bill Bunn, Dave Edwards, Randy Steele, Pat Patterson, Bob Johnson (dec.) Andrew Scott Honeycutt, Dave Mack, Jamie Eller (Jones), Dan Mills, Bill Benjamin, Maurice Brown, Jones Fuquay, Matthew Bulley, Joe George, Don Flowers, Rick Mendleson, Michael Buscemi, Mac McKee, Rick D. Rhodes, Jay Lance, Terry Tunes, Joe Overman and many others.

The Fire

During the 1980's and early 1990s, the station signed off the air each night at midnight. The duties of the last announcer of the evening included recording the weather forecast on a 24-hour answering machine "The WVOT 24-Hour Weather Center", cleaning up the control room (food boxes, ash trays, etc.) and locking up the station for the five hours or so it would be un-occupied before the morning airstaff arrived.

In one corner of the control room was a pre-internet relic of broadcasting, a teletype machine, which spewed yards and yards of paper throughout an air shift. One further responsibility of the night announcer was clearing the wire service area of the accumulated teletype paper. Unfortunately, one night in 1992 an announcer completed all of his duties, including throwing away all the wire-service paper, and emptying the ash tray from the control room into the same trash can. The blaze destroyed the building.

Within days under the continued leadership of Rick Mendleson, the studios were moved to an historic house on Jackson Street in downntown Wilson. A new transmitter building was erected on the original Herring Avenue tower site.

WRDU-FM

In 1984, Century Communications sold WVOT-WXYY to Voyager Communications. The FM was moved to Raleigh and the call letters were changed to WRDU. A new tower site was built near Middlesex, North Carolina, and the confusing, FCC-required announcement of the station's licensing was broadcast hourly: "W-R-D-U, F-M, Wilson, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill".