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WGST AM is a radio station in the city of Atlanta, Georgia at 640kHz. Owned by Clear Channel Communications subsidiary Citicasters Licenses (formerly part of Jacor), it holds Atlanta as its city of license.
The station was formerly on 920kHz, now used by WGKA AM. The move allowed it to increase power from 5kW day and 500W night to 50kW day and 1kW night. While this improved daytime reception, it ruined the nighttime reception, which is now highly directional to avoid interference.
WGST's original license for 920 was issued in 1922, with the callsign WGM. The owner was the Atlanta Journal, responding to the rival Atlanta Constitution's new WSB. (The FCC issued WGM's license the day after WSB's.) WGST got its current callsign after being given to the Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech) in 1923. The WGM license was allowed to expire that August, and issued to the school in January of 1924 as WBBF, later becoming WGST in 1925. It was operated as a commercial station under a lease to Southern Broadcasting Company beginning in 1930, but the Georgia Board of Regents got back control of the station in 1946. In the 1940s, it was located in the Forsyth Building in downtown Atlanta. It was a CBS affiliate in 1947 and later became an ABC affiliate in 1950. In 1956, WGST moved to a studio facility next to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus. This facility was built on top of the Coliseum's locker rooms for the radio station, and it featured two large studios for live performances, complete with grand pianos. In 1973, it was declared surplus property and was sold for five million dollars to Meredith Corporation in 1974, ignoring opposition from alumni, state legislators, and even the governor. However, interest from the trust fund created by the sale was used to upgrade Tech's student-run WREK FM 91.1, which, in 1978, moved to the Coliseum studios vacated by WGST in 1975.
Ray Charles' song "I Got a Woman" was recorded at WGST in the early 1950s.
The station was simulcast on WGST-FM 105.7 around 1999 and 2000.
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