By day, WQVN is powered at 9,300 wattsnon-directional. But at night, to reduce interference to other stations on 1360 AM, it reduces power to 400 watts. The transmitter is on NE 71st Street in Miami.[2] Programming is also heard on 250-watt FM translatorW272DS at 102.3 MHz.[3]
WKAT was first licensed by the FCC on December 3, 1937 to operate on 1500 kHz, transmitting from North Bay Road in Miami Beach. The original licensee was Miami Beach mayor A. Frank Katzentine.[4] The frequency was moved to 1330 kHz in 1940, and the current 1360 kHz on the "Radio Moving Day" on March 29, 1941.[5]
In the 1940s, singer-songwriter Arthur Fields worked at the station while in semi-retirement[6] when the station had a popular music format.
WKAT spent the 1960s and 1970s as a Miami Beach-based local talk station.[7]
Prior to 2005, WKAT had been South Florida's last remaining classical music station.[7]
WKAT next began airing Salem Communications' "Radio Luz" Spanish-language Christian format, which also airs on sister station WWDJ 1150 in Boston.
On December 11, 2017, Salem Media Group sold WKAT to Miami-Haitian broadcaster and activist Nelson Voltaire,[8] known under his on-air name “Piman Bouk.” The station switched to Haitian language programming under an LMA in January 2018.
Salem retained the Radio Luz format and iconic Miami “WKAT” callsign and moved them to sister station WHIM. The station on 1360 AM concurrently changed its call sign to the current WQVN.
Larry King's early radio career was spent at WKAT, where he hosted a morning show at Pumpernik's restaurant on Miami Beach, interviewing entertainers working in Miami, including Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra.[9]
For two years, WKAT 1360 AM was the South Florida home for talk radio host Neil Rogers, who debuted on the station in March 1976 in the 3 to 6 PM afternoon drive shift and left in 1978.
U.S. radio stations in the Miami metropolitan area
Bahamas
