WQOM

WQOM (1060 AM) is a radio station broadcasting Catholic radio programming in the Boston market. The station is owned by Holy Family Communications and is licensed to Natick, Massachusetts.

History

The station first began operation November 12, 1972 as WGTR, owned by John Garabedian. It was a full service daytime station for Natick and MetroWest, programming top-40 music.

WGTR originally from a small tower in a residential area of Natick. However, Garabedian had long hoped to expand WGTR into Boston itself. In 1980, he won a construction permit to move to a five-tower setup in Ashland, operating at 25,000 watts during the day. This gave it adequate coverage of most of the Boston area. Plans called for WGTR to power down to 2,500 watts at night to protect KYW in Philadelphia and WBZ in Boston; the latter station operated at adjacent 1030 AM. Unfortunately for Garabedian, Westinghouse Broadcasting, owner of both KYW and WBZ, complained that the Ashland site wouldn't provide enough protection for those stations. As a result, WGTR was only allowed to operate at 1,700 watts at night.