WGMS was a radio station in Washington, D.C. that maintained a classical music format from 1946 to 2007. Last owned by Bonneville International, it was known on air for many years as Classical 103.5. It last broadcast on 104.1 FM from a transmitter in Waldorf, Maryland, with a repeater signal broadcast from Braddock Heights, Maryland, on 103.9 FM under the call sign of WGYS. The WGMS call letters are today in use by public radio station WETA-FM's repeater in Hagerstown, Maryland, having been donated by Bonneville as part of an agreement between both stations made public the same day WGMS signed off. History Early history The station went on air on December 29, 1946, under the call sign of WQQW at 570 kHz on the AM band. It added an FM signal, at 103.5 MHz, on September 18, 1948. It changed its call letters in 1951 to WGMS, which stood for "Washington's Good Music Station" (that slogan had been used on the station several years before). According to the station's website, WGMS "was the first FM signal in the marketplace and holds the record for the longest consecutive broadcast in the same format." WGMS was at one time owned by RKO General Radio, which also owned top 40 stations in New York City (WXLO-FM), Boston (WRKO), Los Angeles (KHJ), Memphis (WHBQ), and Detroit (CKLW). In the 1970s, to comply with new FCC regulations limiting simulcasting, RKO prepared to change the format of WGMS (AM) to top 40. A public outcry in support of the classical format forestalled the change, and the United States Congress authorized the stations to simulcast their programming full-time, as an exemption from Federal Communications Commission regulations mandating separate programming on AM and FM outlets owned by a single entity. In 1988, both WGMS AM & FM were sold off to Washington, D.C., venture capitalists Steven and Mitchell Rales and John VerStandig. The Rales Brothers later bought out VerStandig and converted WGMS AM into the first frequency for WTEM, a sports-talk station, on May 24, 1992. WTEM moved to 980 AM in 1998 as the result of a format swap between that station and business talk station WWRC, which itself now resides at 1260 AM. The 570 kHz frequency now belongs to Salem Communications, which uses it for news/talk station WWRC. During WGMS's tenure at 103.5 FM, its antenna and engineering facility were located on The American