WHQR is the National Public Radio (NPR) member station for Southeastern North Carolina, broadcasting on the FM band 91.3 MHz. Based in Wilmington and operated by Friends of Public Radio, Inc. (a community group). It airs NPR, American Public Media, PRX, and BBC programming as well as classical, jazz and adult album alternative music. WHQR hosts concerts, art receptions and events in their gallery space as well as live concerts from the Soup to Nuts Live program and monthly Classical concerts.
The station operates an FM translator station, W265EJ from Rose Hill on 100.9. WHQR also operates a sister classical music station called Classical HQR, broadcasting on the HD-2 stream as well as on translator W224CX from Wilmington on 92.7.
HD programming
WHQR broadcasts in the HD radio format. Since April 2009, WHQR has broadcast Classical HQR on their HD2 sidechannel. Classical HQR specializes in classical music programming with local and national hosts.
Translators
The network consists of one class C radio station, 91.3 and 4 FM translators. All stations are referred to as either WHQR or Classical HQR. The call letters of the other stations are identified only during required station IDs at the start of each hour.
WHQR's 100,000-watt signal not only covers Wilmington but much of southeastern North Carolina including Jacksonville, Surf City, Oak Island, Whiteville, Elizabethtown, Wallace, Warsaw and Lumberton. The station once operated an FM repeater station, W255BZ from Myrtle Beach on 98.9. The translator expanded that signal to cover northeastern South Carolina, including Myrtle Beach, Conway, Dillion, and Marion Counties.
WHQR still owns the 96.7 translator in Brunswick county, which was used for the Classical HQR format from September 2014 to March 2016. The signal changed to 92.7 MHz, which increased the power from 98 to 250 watts. The current station manager, Michelle Rhinesmith, hopes that WHQR will be able to use the 96.7 translator to increase the range of the classical station to more of Brunswick County and Kure Beach.
WHQR's sister classical music station called Classical HQR, broadcasts on the HD-2 stream as well as on translator W224CX from Wilmington on 92.7. It was also on W272CV from Myrtle Beach on 102.3.
Programming
In addition to syndicated national programming, WHQR has local programs that are both talk and music shows. WHQR hosts local news on the 91.3 station and produces Coastline with Rachel Lewis Hiburn and the Newsroom with Ben Schachtman. There is also a short interview segment , Around Town with Rhonda Bellamy, about local cultural movers and shakers. WHQR also features several folk, jazz and adult album alternative local programming. WHQR also produces four podcasts including Cape Fear Rundown, Coastline, Port City Politics, and The Newsroom. The MC Erny Art Gallery space at the WHQR studios in the historic Warwick building in downtown Wilmington also hosts community events. There are six art shows per year and the gallery participates in Wilmington's Fourth Friday late night gallery event. There are eight Soup to Nuts Live concerts per year, which are then aired on the radio on the Saturday program. A Little Lunch Music is an informal concert hosted in the gallery on the first Friday of every month at noon.
History
WHQR began with a dark day for classical music lovers in Wilmington. On a Saturday in March 1979, avid listeners were disappointed when a local commercial radio station dropped its broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera without warning. Several listeners gathered together to figure out a way to bring opera broadcasts back, and held their first meeting on April 19 in the Kenan Hall Band Room on the UNC-Wilmington campus. They organized into a group called Friends of the Opera. They looked into the possibility of improving and collaborating with UNCW's college radio station, WLOZ, but there were many financial and administrative hurdles that made that a difficult possibility. Friends of the Opera slowly realized that a public radio station was the best way to return classical music to Wilmington and changed their name to Friends of Public Radio in early 1980. With some financial and fundraising help from Friends of Public Radio, WLOZ hosted the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts during the school year from December 12, 1979 until it was forced off the air in February 1981 due to a possible drug scandal.