Classic Rock
WCKL is a non-commercial radio station licensed to serve Chicago, Illinois. The station is owned and operated by Educational Media Foundation and carries network programming from K-Love, EMF's main contemporary Christian music network. The station's broadcast tower is located atop the John Hancock Center.
The station was first granted a construction permit on April 7, 1942 with the call sign W83C, licensed to broadcast at 48.3 MHz on the original 42-50 MHz FM broadcast band. The station was owned by Richard W. Hoffman, who also owned WHFC. Its studios and transmitter were initially located at the Medinah Athletic Club building at 505 N. Michigan Avenue, but were moved to the Bankers Building at 105 West Adams by 1945.
On November 1, 1943, the station was assigned the WEHS call sign, and it was granted its first license on October 8, 1945. The callsign stood for "Elizabeth Hoffman's Station", named for owner Richard Hoffman's mother. In January 1946, the station received permission from the FCC to go silent to convert to operation on the new 88-108 MHz FM broadcast band, which the FCC had created on June 27, 1945. On July 31, 1946, the station was reassigned to 100.1 MHz, and then granted a move to 97.9 MHz on September 23, 1947. WEHS was the first commercial radio station to air "storecasts". It broadcast background music for National Tea grocery stores in the Chicago area. When the contract with National ran out in the mid-1950s, WEHS simulcast the foreign language and Black programming of co-owned WHFC for six hours a day, the minimum broadcast time to keep the license. In 1952, WEHS's studios and transmitter were moved to WHFC's studio and transmitter site at 3350 S. Kedzie.
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