WBT (AM)

WBT (1110 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station serving the Charlotte metropolitan area, including parts of North Carolina and South Carolina. The station is owned by Urban One, with studios and offices located off West Morehead Street, just west of Uptown Charlotte, co-located with the city's CBS television affiliate, WBTV, currently owned by Gray Media but at one time co-owned with WBT Radio. Since January 8, 2026, WBT has suspended regular progamming, and run a repeating message instructing listeners to tune to 107.9 FM for the progamming previously carried by this station.

WBT's transmission towers are three of only eight operational diamond-shaped Blaw-Knox towers in the United States. The station broadcasts 50,000 watts around the clock as the only Class A clear-channel station in the Carolinas. Its transmitter site is located in south Charlotte, off Nations Ford Road. A single non-directional antenna radiates the transmitter's full power during the day. Its daytime coverage is not nearly as large as those of other 50,000-watt stations, due to the Carolinas' poor ground conductivity; some outer suburbs such as Statesville, Shelby, and Salisbury only get a grade B signal. Despite this, it provides at least secondary coverage as far north as the eastern Piedmont Triad, as far west as the eastern portion of the Upstate, as far east as the Pee Dee and as far south as the Columbia suburbs. Under the right conditions, it can be heard well into the more mountainous areas of the Carolinas, as well as the Sandhills. At night, all three towers are used in a directional pattern that limits its signal toward the west, to avoid interfering with KFAB in Omaha, Nebraska, the other Class A station on the frequency. Even with this restriction, it can be heard across much of the eastern half of North America with a good radio. For many years, WBT boasted that at night it could be heard "from Maine to Miami".

As with many early radio stations, there is a limited amount of information about WBT's origins. Wesley Wallace's 1962 review of the history of North Carolina radio reported being frustrated "by the absence or inaccessibility" of information, noting that "Broadcasters have been too busy acting in the present tense to take much thought of the past; hence they have discarded much of the memorabilia of broadcasting's earlier days".

WBT was first licensed as a broadcasting station on March 18, 1922. However, the station traces its history to earlier broadcasts made in a joint effort by Fred Laxton, associated with General Electric, Earle J. Gluck, a Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company engineer and Frank Bunker, a Southern Bell Telephone Company employee. During World War I a ban was in place that suspended amateur radio transmissions. In late 1919, the ban was lifted, and all three became licensed radio amateurs. Most amateurs at this time used spark transmitters that could only transmit the dots-and-dashes of Morse code, however, Laxton managed to acquire a scarce vacuum tube from General Electric, which made audio transmissions possible.

The three decided to set up a transmitter in an abandoned chicken coop located behind Laxton's home at 2462 Mecklenburg Avenue, with a microphone line running to the home's living room. Laxton's daughter later remembered being drafted as a child to repeatedly count into the microphone for the early test transmissions. These initial transmissions eventually were expanded into the playing of phonograph records, which resulted in enough interest from local amateurs, as well as technically advanced members of the general public, that a regular schedule of broadcasts was established. In late 1920, the station was issued an Experimental radio station license to Fred Laxton, located at his home address, with the call sign 4XD.

The growing interest in radio led to the December 1921 founding of the Southern Radio Corporation, located in the Realty Building, to sell radio parts and equipment. The initial officers were Fred Laxton, president, J. B. Marshall, vice president, and Frank Bunker, commercial engineer in charge. It was also announced at this time that the company planned to installed a transmitter and rooftop antenna at the Realty building, to be used for "sending out concerts, big speeches and other entertainment to those who own home outfits within a radius of 200 miles [320 km] from Charlotte".

Initially there were no specific standards in the United States for radio stations making transmissions intended for the general public, and numerous stations under various classifications made entertainment broadcasts. However, effective December 1, 1921, the Department of Commerce, the regulators of radio at this time, adopted a regulation that formally created a broadcasting station category, and stations were now required to hold a Limited Commercial license authorizing operation on wavelengths of 360 meters for "entertainment" broadcasts or 485 meters for "market and weather reports" (833 and 619 kHz).

The Southern Radio Corporation was issued a "provisional" broadcasting station license, with the randomly assigned call letters WBT, on March 18, 1922, which authorized broadcasts on the 360-meter entertainment wavelength. WBT made its first broadcast four days later on March 22. The next day's Charlotte Observer reported that: "Erected by the Southern Radio corporation of this city and attached to the Realty building, this station, officially designated as WBT, operating on a 360-meter wavelength, this station will arrange musical concerts, addresses on various subjects and will give nightly programs for the benefit of approximately 20,000 receiving stations within a hearing radius. The first program was given last night and several stations in this section are known to have picked up the Victrola music broadcasted." This article further described the "wireless telephone broadcasting station" as "the first station that has been erected and put in active operating condition in the Carolinas. A station [WLAC] has been erected at State college in West Raleigh, but it did not work properly and it will probably be a few weeks before it will be in a position to do any broadcasting." On April 11, following a successful inspection by the Fourth Radio District inspector, Walter Van Nostrand Jr on April 4, 1922, the license's "provisional" qualifier was removed.