WALL (1340 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Middletown, New York, and serving Orange County and parts of the Hudson Valley. WALL is owned by Neversink Media Group through licensee Digital Radio Broadcasting, Inc., and broadcasts a classic hits radio format. The radio studios and offices are in Port Jervis and Middletown. WALL is powered at 1,000 watts non-directional, broadcasting from a transmitter on Monhagan Avenue in Middletown. It is also heard on five FM translators in New York and Pennsylvania as well as over an HD Radio digital subchannel on 101.5 WPDH. Early history WALL radio was started in the back bedroom of a house in Middletown New York by Mr. Newhall.it came to air on August 2, 1942, the first radio station in the western part of Orange County, part of a series of low-powered local stations that took to the air in the period after the 1941 North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement and realignment. WALL signed on with a full-service popular music format with a heavy amount of local news, and with only newspapers as competition, were successful. The station was owned by the Community Broadcasting Corporation whose partners were Roger Clipp, an executive with Triangle Publications (WFIL in Philadelphia) and John Morgan Davis, who ultimately served as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. In 1950, WALL hired Jim Patt from WNBH in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as General Manager; he ran the station until 1972. On-air personalities included Bill Swanwick ("Breakfast With Beaming Billy"), Jerry Wax ("The Wax Works"), longtime staffer Joe Ryan and Big Jim Pappas; Al Larson served as news director, with Johnny Zaimes in charge of sales. Dominance in the 1960s and 1970s The station was sold to R. Peter Straus, owner of WMCA in New York City ("home of the Good Guys"). Straus, who had aspirations to become a United States senator, bought WALL as well as stations in Utica and Geneva, New York, so his editorials could be heard throughout the state. In 1964, however, Robert F. Kennedy decided to run for the Senate, ending Straus's political plans. Patt stayed on to run WALL for Straus, putting WALL-FM on the air, but when Straus sold his stations, Patt decided it was time to retire to Fort Myers, Florida, where he teamed up again with Roger Clipp to put a station on the air in that market. By the mid-60s, WALL had