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WQXR-FM

WQXR-FM (105.9 FM) is an American non-commercial classical radio station, licensed to Newark, New Jersey, and serving the North Jersey and New York City area. It is owned by the nonprofit organization New York Public Radio (NYPR), which also operates WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM and the four-station New Jersey Public Radio group. WQXR-FM broadcasts from studios and offices located in the Hudson Square neighborhood in lower Manhattan and its transmitter is located at the Empire State Building. The station is the core audio service for NYPR's WQXR brand.

The current WQXR-FM is its second FM incarnation in the New York City area. The first WQXR-FM in turn traced its history to an earlier New York City station, WQXR, which broadcast on the AM band. Both of these earlier stations were commercial operations, broadcasting classical music and known as "the radio station of The New York Times". New York Public Radio acquired the WQXR-FM branding on July 14, 2009, as part of a three-way trade which also involved The New York Times Company—the previous owners of WQXR-FM—and Univision Radio. As a result of the deal, WQXR-FM became a non-commercial public radio station on a new FM frequency, now operated by New York Public Radio. Financial support includes three on-air pledge drives a year.

WQXR-FM's main programming is also carried by translator station W279AJ, 103.7 FM in Highland, New York, simulcast on WNYC-FM's 93.9 FM HD2 subchannel, and carried over Time Warner Cable television channel 590 in the Hudson Valley, New York. On July 29, 2013, programming began to be simulcast on the former WDFH, now WQXW, 90.3 FM in Ossining, New York, covering northern and central Westchester County. WQXR-FM's standard programming is streamed on its webcast.

Additional programming includes New Sounds Radio, focusing on classical works by living composers, which is both streamed and broadcast over WQXR-FM's HD2 subchannel. A streaming-only channel, Operavore, dedicated to opera music, was launched in 2012.

WQXR-FM is the outgrowth of a "high-fidelity" AM station, WQXR. This station was founded as experimental station W2XR by John V. L. Hogan and Elliott Sanger, and began operating in New York City on March 26, 1929, as a mechanical television station. In conjunction with the television transmissions, the station commonly broadcast classical music. In 1936 it was converted into a standard AM broadcast station at 1560 kHz, licensed to New York City with the call letters WQXR.

One of the listeners was the inventor of wide band FM, Edwin Howard Armstrong. When Armstrong put his experimental FM station, W2XMN, on the air, he arranged to rebroadcast some of WQXR's programming. This ended in 1939, when Hogan and Sanger put their own experimental FM station on the air, W2XQR, just down the dial from Armstrong at 42.3 MHz. In 1941, the station began transmitting from the top of the Chanin Building, where it remained until 1965 when it moved to the top of the Empire State Building. Remnants of the original tower remain on the Chanin Building.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began licensing commercial FM stations in 1941, and W2XQR moved to 45.9 MHz, becoming W59NY. Effective November 1, 1943, the FCC modified its policy for FM call letters, and the station became WQXQ.

In 1944, Hogan and Sanger sold their holding company, Interstate Broadcasting Company, to the New York Times Company. When the FM broadcast band was moved from 42–50 MHz to its present frequency range of 88–108 MHz in 1945, WQXQ moved to 97.7 MHz. In early 1948 the call letters were changed to WQXR-FM, and its frequency, home of WQXR-FM for the next 64 years, to 96.3 MHz.

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