WYNZ began operations in 1962 as a 250-watt daytime station on 1520 AM with a country format, which changed to Top 40 later in the 1960s and later religious programming.

In 1974, the station changed its calls to WYFC with the format remaining Christian-based. In 1986 it became WWCM and moved to 990. The station is now WDEO.

Sources

Mike Mijal, class of 1968 Stevenson High School in Livonia Michigan, interned at WYNZ radio station in Ypsilanti Mi. as a board engineer and on-air personality for the Mike Lombardi show.. At 17 years old Mijal joined ATA Studios in Westland Mi. as an engineer recording and mixing for local Detroit bands in the late 60's. He also played keyboard with a popular local band called The Unveiled. Mike attended the Institute of Audio Research in New York City and there developed his engineering skills.

Jim Kerr was an absolutely brilliant kid. He thought he was invincible and I thought he was too. It was Jim that made the connection with Brian Hadley, station Manager at WYNZ radio in Ypsilanti. Jim had taken a bus there, toured the station and convinced Brian to give him an interview. Jim's second question after asking me if I wanted to be a DJ was could I get us a ride to Ypsilanti. I talked to my parents that night about it. Marge didn't believe a word of it and did not want me to get involved but when she found out that we were planning to hitchhike if we couldn't get a ride she volunteered to drive us. We worked on our pitch to Brian for several days and at 1pm on Saturday February 4th 1967, dressed in a suit and tie, we met in Brian's office.

Tom Skaff, the furniture store owner and now missionary, and who studied Electronics in college and worked briefly in broadcasting, told me and others of the story of how WYSI 1480 and WYNZ 1520 came to operate about 400 feet apart on Clark Rd. near Ypsilanti. Apparently, the person who started WYNZ 1520 had a falling out with the founder of WYSI 1480 and decided to start his own station. Since 1520 was nondirectional and 1480 was directional, WYNZ got on the air first. When WYSI came on the air later, all kinds of intermodulation and directional reradiation problems occurred due to the proximity of WYNZ, which WYSI had to fix.

Edit tags