WNAX (AM)

WNAX (570 AM) is a commercial radio station in Yankton, South Dakota. It airs a full service radio format including news, talk, sports and farm reports. It is owned by Saga Communications, with studios on East State Highway 50 in Yankton.

WNAX is a Class B station, powered at 5,000 watts. By day, it is non-directional. At night, to protect other stations on 570 AM from interference, it uses a directional antenna with a three-tower array. The transmitter is on 444th Avenue in Mission Hill, South Dakota. Programming is also heard on FM translator K245DA at 96.9 MHz in Yankton.

WNAX airs a mix of local shows and nationally syndicated programs. Weekday mornings begin with The WNAX Early Morning Get-Together with Big Scott Allen. It includes local news, agriculture reports and updates from CBS News Radio. The rest of the weekday schedule features news, ag reports and local talk. At 6pm, the station switches to Fox Sports Radio. At midnight, WNAX carries Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. Before dawn, it airs This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal.

Weekends feature specialty shows on money, health, travel, gardening, car repair, home repair and technology. Syndicated weekend shows include Eye on Travel with Peter Greenberg, Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger, CBS News Weekend Roundup, The Takeout with Major Garrett, Rich DeMuro on Tech, Face The Nation and Meet The Press. Most hours begin with an update from CBS News Radio. Sunday mornings feature religious shows and Sunday evenings carry Fox Sports Radio.

In addition, WNAX is the flagship station for South Dakota State University sports. It also carries Minnesota Twins baseball, Minnesota Timberwolves basketball and Minnesota Vikings football.

WNAX was first licensed on November 7, 1922, to the Dakota Radio Apparatus company. It is the oldest surviving radio station in the state of South Dakota. The call sign came from a sequentially assigned list. WNAX was the last AM station in the state to receive a call sign starting with a W instead of K; all subsequent AM stations in the state were established after the January 1923 shift that moved the K/W call letter boundary from the western border of South Dakota to the Mississippi River.

WNAX was purchased by Gurney's Seed and Nursery Company in 1926 and became known as "WNAX—-Voice of the House of Gurney in Yankton". The station was used to promote Gurney products and services, making Gurney's a household name.

On February 10, 1933, the Federal Radio Commission authorized an increase in daytime power from 1,000 watts to 2,500 watts. Less than two years later, December 18, 1934, the new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized another increase in power, to the current 5,000 watts.