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History of WPDS
Thanks to Marc
Tyll for this history of WPDS.
In 1987, Inverness resident Christopher Moelling decided that Citrus
County needed a second local FM radio station. Crystal River’s only radio
station, WKTK-FM 98.5,
moved to Gainesville in 1986, and in 1987 WTRS-FM
102.3 was in the planning stages to move to Ocala. This left WXCV-FM
95.3 as Citrus County’s only remaining local FM station that was still
broadcasting from, and catering to, Citrus County. In 1987 the only other radio
station still located in the area - WINV-AM
1560 Inverness - was off the air. Moelling had started his radio career,
which was more of an avocation rather than a fulltime vocation or career choice,
when in 1981 at 16 he was hired part time at country station WTRS-AM-FM
in Dunnellon. At the time Moelling knew very little about radio, but he was very
eager to learn and had the dream of owning a local radio station one day. Upon
graduation from high school, Moelling took over the day-to-day management of his
father’s business - The Citrus Cycle Center - located in Inverness. And
although never engaged as a career choice, Moelling also became a Florida
licensed EMT and became a strong advocate for clean air awareness after his
father was diagnosed with lung cancer. Moelling hired a consulting engineer who
conducted a frequency search for Citrus County, and discovered 97.1 as a 6,000
watt class A would fit comfortably in the center of the county. Moelling filed a
petition to allot the frequency to Beverly Hills as that community’s first
service. The petition was granted and in 1989. Moelling received a construction
permit for WEOA-FM 97.1. By 1990 the call letters were changed to WPDS
for “Paradise 97.1” with plans to program soft adult contemporary and easy
listening sounds catering to Citrus County’s predominately senior citizen
residents. Because of Moelling’s civic and charity work in the community,
Moelling felt he didn’t have the time to devote to building and operating WPDS,
so the following year in 1991 Moelling sold the construction permit to Heart
of Citrus, Inc, owned by David S. Arthurs and Hugh E. Tolle.
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