WQAM

One of Florida's oldest radio stations.

WQAM (560 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Miami, Florida, United States, featuring a sports format in simulcast with WQAM-FM. Owned by Audacy, Inc., it serves the Miami metropolitan area and much of South Florida as the flagship of the Miami Heat, the Florida Panthers, Miami Hurricanes football and basketball. The station is also the area affiliate of Westwood One Sports and the BetMGM Network and is the radio home for Joe Rose.

Quick Facts

City: Miami, Florida
Area: South Florida
Branding: 104.3 WQAM
Air date: 23 January 1923
Frequency: 560, kHz
Repeater: 104.3, WQAM-FM, Miramar
Format: Sports radio
Language: English

Facts from the source article.

History

WQAM is among the oldest radio stations in Florida. According to Federal Communications Commission records, the station received its first license under the WQAM call letters on January 23, 1923. However, various other dates have been proposed for its founding, based on the view that the station’s history should begin with an earlier Miami station, WFAW. Government records show that WFAW was licensed to The Miami Daily Metropolis from June 16, 1922, until it was deleted on June 11, 1923.

Fred W. Borton later claimed that WFAW had actually been first licensed to him, though no records support the existence of WFAW before the Metropolis grant. Because of WFAW’s possible connection to WQAM, the origin date of WFAW itself has been reported as anywhere from 1920 to 1922. One account says WFAW, the forerunner of WQAM, began operating with a 50-watt transmitter in 1920. Another states that the 50-watt transmitter Borton assembled from odds and ends in 1920 was licensed the following year, with its first call letters, WFAW, changed to WQAM a year later.

A third report claims that in 1920, while co-owner of the Electrical Equipment Co., Borton started up the transmitter of Florida’s first radio station, WFAW, the forerunner of WQAM, and the call letters changed to WQAM in 1922. Yet another says WQAM was the first broadcasting station in Florida, with a license issued to Borton in February 1921 under the call letters WFAW, which were discontinued in 1922. The 1972 Broadcasting Yearbook lists May 1921 as WQAM’s start date, while the 1953 edition lists 1920.

One source states that WQAM was founded in 1922 as Florida’s pioneer broadcaster and was still the southernmost station in the United States.