WGTO started life as a two tower DA daytimer licensed to Haines City in 1955. Studios in the arcade of the Haines City hotel. The owner was KWK Inc out of St. Louis. After less than a couple years Dick Pope who owned Cypress Gardens came up with the idea of moving the station to Cypress Gardens. About that time Stanley Hubbard (of KSTP fame) bought the station. The FCC had a problem with the city of license issue as Cypress Gardens wasn't a city. In steps Pope's old buddy US Senator from Florida Spencard Holland, and magically Cypress Gardens gets it's own post office. No problem now says the FCC. Take a look at a map of Florida some time and look for state route 540, ironically it passes the entrance of Cypress Gardens. It took some series influence to pull that off. The late Dick Pope could pull a rabbit out of his hat. The custom built GTO studios weren't a trade, we paid a dollar a year, but on the other hand Cypress Gardens dropped 10 grand a year on spots, 40 years ago. The transmitter was north of Lake Alfred on WGTO road, a four tower parallelgram. The day pattern looked like a Gemini spacecraft with the heat shield facing east, nulls NW and SW. In the 60's GTO got 50kw midday with four towers but retained the 2 tower array with 10kw for critical hours. All this time the station was a daytimer with no pre sunrise. That came about 1974 with a 6am sign on and 230 watts. I remember hearing WDAK out of Columbus, Ga on the air monitor in the winter while it still dark and we were on pre sunrise power. About the same time we got 50kw across the board and dropped critical hours. A few years later came 1kw until the sale and move to Pine Hills. Did it talk? You could hear it during the day from Valdosta, Georgia to Key West. GTO...Gulf to Ocean Jerry Kiefer Roswell, NM
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