Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | |
| |
| Frequency | 1150 kHz |
|---|---|
| Branding | 1150 AM 101.7 FM WDEL |
| Programming | |
| Format | News/talk |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| History | |
First air date | July 22, 1922 |
Former call signs | WHAV (1922–1926) |
Call sign meaning | Delaware |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| 16458 | |
| Class | B |
| Power | 5,000 watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 39°48′57.4″N 75°31′46.7″W / 39.815944°N 75.529639°W |
| Repeater | See § Simulcast |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | www |
WDEL (1150 kHz) is a commercial radio station in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. It simulcasts a news/talk radio format with WDEL-FM 101.7. They are owned by Draper Holdings Business Trust with the license held by WBOC, Inc.[2]
WDEL broadcasts with 5,000 watts around the clock. To protect other stations on 1150 AM from interference, WDEL uses a directional antenna with a four-tower array. The transmitter, studios and offices located on Shipley Road in Wilmington.[3]
WDEL was first licensed in July 1922.[4] It was owned by the Wilmington Electrical Specialty Company, and was initially issued the sequentially assigned call sign WHAV.[5] It made its debut broadcast on July 22 as one of the earliest broadcasting stations licensed in the United States, and the first in the state of Delaware.[6] In 1926 the call sign were changed to WDEL.[7] Founded by Willard S. Wilson, the station was originally a 250-watt station, but by the late 1940s, it had been granted an increase to its current power of 5,000 watts.[8]
WDEL was later owned by the Delmarva Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of Steinman Enterprises, a family-owned newspaper, broadcasting and mining company, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Delmarva owned WDEL for more than 80 years.[9]
During the "Golden Age of Radio", WDEL was an affiliate of the NBC Red Network, carrying its dramas, comedies, sports, news, game shows, soap operas and big band broadcasts. For a time in the 1940s, WDEL was co-owned with another early AM station licensed to Wilmington, WILM. While WDEL carried NBC Red Network programs, WILM aired shows from the NBC Blue Network (later ABC) and the Mutual Broadcasting System.
In 1949, WDEL signed on a TV station, WDEL-TV (channel 7).[10] Because WDEL had been a long-time NBC radio affiliate, WDEL-TV became an NBC-TV network affiliate. It also carried programming from the DuMont Television Network. But it was limited in power due to its proximity to two other channel 7 stations in New York City and Washington, DC. It later moved to channel 12. The Steinman family sold channel 12 in 1955; the allocation eventually became WHYY-TV, the PBS station for Philadelphia, but still licensed to Wilmington.
In 1950, WDEL added an FM station, WDEL-FM 93.7.[11] At first it simulcast the programming on the AM station. But by the late 1960s, it aired separate programming using the call sign WSTW.
With the demise of old time network radio in the 1950s, WDEL adopted a full-service format, combining news, sports and middle of the road music.
In the mid-1980s, WDEL was the first Wilmington radio station to provide traffic reports. WDEL's "TrafficWatch on the 9s" remains on the air today.
In the mid-1990s, WDEL moved to a news/talk format, eliminating music. The station aired a local call-in and information show in the morning, plus various nationally syndicated programs during the day including Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch Albom and Sean Hannity.
In 2006, WDEL's main competitor, WILM, was bought by Clear Channel Communications. Because Limbaugh and Hannity were syndicated by Premiere Networks, a Clear Channel subsidiary, those shows moved over to WILM. As a result, WDEL adopted a weekday schedule of mostly "live and local" news and talk, only running syndicated programming in the evening and on weekends.
In 2015, Delmarva Broadcasting acquired WJKS (101.7 FM), licensed to Canton, New Jersey. Despite being based in New Jersey, the 101.7 signal covers parts of Northern Delaware, including sections of Wilmington. On April 1, WJKS flipped from urban adult contemporary music to a simulcast of WDEL, giving the station's listeners the option to hear it on AM or FM. The callsign was switched to WDEL-FM, returning that call sign to the air on 101.7 MHz. WDEL can also be heard on the HD2 subchannel of WSTW.
In early 2019, Steinman Communications announced that it was divesting its broadcast properties. All Delmarva Broadcasting stations were to be sold to Forever Media.[12]
In June 2025, Forever Media sold six of its stations (including WDEL) to Draper Media for $11 million.[13][14]
WDEL-AM-FM feature local talk and information shows on weekdays with nationally syndicated talk programs at night: The Ramsey Show with Dave Ramsey, Rich Valdés America at Night, Red Eye Radio and America in the Morning.[15] On weekends, WDEL-AM-FM have specialty shows devoted to money, sports, real estate, home repair, gardening and travel, including some paid brokered programming. Syndicated shows on weekends includes The Money Pit, and Eye on Travel with Peter Greenberg, Jill on Money.
WDEL-AM-FM carry Philadelphia Phillies baseball and Philadelphia Eagles football. Additionally, WDEL-AM-FM air New Castle County high school football and basketball games. Sports betting shows from VSiN are heard on weekend nights.
WDEL has won several prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, including national awards in 2007 for Best Website and 2009 for Best Newscast. WDEL has also been named News Operation of the Year by the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association numerous times.
In 2004, WDEL was awarded by the National Association of Broadcasters with its prestigious Crystal Award for public service.
In 2005, WDEL became one of the first radio stations in the nation to produce web-based news video for its website, WDEL.com.
In 2011, WDEL won a prestigious Marconi Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for "Medium Market Station of the Year."
In 2014, WDEL's news department won the RTDNA national Edward R. Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence." WDEL also won RTDNA's national Murrow Award for "Best Newscast" that year. In 2016, WDEL again won the Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence."
WDEL-FM simulcasts the programming of WDEL 1150 AM:
| Call sign | Frequency | City of license | Facility ID | ERP W |
Height m (ft) |
Class | Transmitter coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WDEL-FM | 101.7 FM | Canton, New Jersey | 51136 | 3,300 | 91 m (299 ft) | A | 39°25′53.6″N 75°20′12.0″W / 39.431556°N 75.336667°W |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
WDEL (1150 kHz) is a commercial radio station in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. It simulcasts a news/talk radio format with WDEL-FM 101.7. They are owned by Draper Holdings Business Trust with the license held by WBOC, Inc. WDEL broadcasts with 5,000 watts around the clock. To protect other stations on 1150 AM from interference, WDEL uses a directional antenna with a four-tower array. The transmitter, studios and offices located on Shipley Road in Wilmington.
Dunleith is a suburb of Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. It was built in the early 1950s, and was the first housing development marketed for African-Americans in Delaware. In 1990, the population was 2,600.
Delaware ( DEL-ə-wair) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey to its northeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state's name derives from the adjacent Delaware Bay, which in turn was named after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and the Colony of Virginia's first colonial-era governor. Delaware occupies the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula, and some islands and territory within the Delaware River. It is the second-smallest and sixth-least populous state, but also the sixth-most densely populated. Delaware's most populous city is Wilmington, and the state's capital is Dover, the second-most populous city in Delaware. The state is divided into three counties, the fewest number of counties of any of the 50 U.S. states; from north to south, the three counties are: New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County. The southern two counties, Kent and Sussex, have historically been predominantly agrarian economies. New Castle is more urbanized and is considered part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Delaware is considered part of the Southern United States by the U.S. Census Bureau, but the state's geography, culture, and history are a hybrid of the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, and Southern regions of the country. Before the Delaware coastline was explored and developed by Europeans in the 17th century, the state was inhabited by several Native American tribes, including the Lenape in the north and Nanticoke in the south. The state was first colonized by Dutch traders at Zwaanendael, near present-day Lewes, Delaware, in 1631. Delaware was one of the Thirteen Colonies that participated in the American Revolution against Great Britain, which established the United States as an independent nation. On December 7, 1787, Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, earning it the nickname "The First State". Since the turn of the 20th century, Delaware has become an onshore corporate haven whose corporate laws are deemed appealing to corporations; over half of all New York Stock Exchange-listed corporations and over three-fifths of the Fortune 500 are legally incorporated in Delaware. Over 90% of all U.S. based companies that went public in 2021 incorporated themselves in Delaware.
Hurricane Bertha was an unusual tropical cyclone in early August 2014 that attained hurricane status, despite having a disheveled appearance and an abnormally high atmospheric pressure. The third tropical cyclone and second hurricane of the season, Bertha developed from a tropical wave south of Cape Verde was monitored first for possible tropical cyclogenesis on July 26. Over the following days, it slowly developed and acquired gale-force winds and enough convection to be designated as Tropical Storm Bertha early on August 1. A mostly disorganized cyclone, Bertha quickly moved across the Lesser Antilles, clipping the northern end of Martinique, later that day. During its trek across the eastern Caribbean Sea, its circulation became severely disrupted and it may have degenerated into a tropical wave. On August 3, it traversed the Mona Passage and moved over the Southeastern Bahamas where conditions favored development. Despite an overall ragged appearance on satellite imagery, data from Hurricane Hunters indicated it intensified to a hurricane on August 4; it acquired peak winds of 80 mph (130 km/h) that day. Turning north, and later northeast, Bertha soon weakened as it began to merge with an approaching trough to the west. This merger ultimately took place on August 6, at which time Bertha was declared extratropical well to the south of Nova Scotia. The remnant system raced eastward across the Atlantic and later struck the United Kingdom on August 10. Once over the North Sea, the storm stalled for a few days before resuming its eastward track. It was last noted around the Baltic Sea on August 16. As a tropical cyclone, Bertha's impact was relatively minor. Widespread power outages occurred along its path but no major damage or loss of life took place on land. Enhanced swells and rip currents associated with the hurricane resulted in three fatalities and dozens of rescues along the East Coast of the United States. After becoming an extratropical system, it had significant effects in Western Europe. Particularly hard hit was the United Kingdom, where wind gusts reached 108 mph (174 km/h). Unseasonably heavy rains triggered widespread flooding which shut down roads and prompted evacuations. One fatality took place offshore. On mainland Europe, a small tornado outbreak resulted in scattered structural damage in Belgium, France, and Germany.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
