History

WDAC-FM signed on the air on December 13, 1959 from its studios, transmitter and tower at 683 Lancaster Pike, Route 272 South, Lancaster, PA. The station’s founder, evangelist Percy Crawford, Philadelphia, had a daily 30 minute radio broadcast heard coast-to-coast from the early 1930’s until his death in 1960. Evangelist Crawford chose Lancaster as one of nine cities where he began radio stations because a Lancaster AM station canceled his contract for morning air time when they disapproved of one of his messages. The station is now owned by Richard Crawford, son of the founder.

Many people through the years have wondered if WDAC’s call letters actually stand for anything. Well, indeed they do. Ruth and Percy Crawford had 5 children…Don, Dick, Dan, Dean, and Donna. When Percy Crawford turned in his application to the FCC for possible call letter combinations, he sent 5 suggestions…the initials of all 5 of his children. The combination that the FCC chose to allow Percy Crawford to use for his new radio station was “DAC”, which were the initials of his son, Dean Alan Crawford.

In 1959, WDAC was the first FM station in the Lancaster area providing commercial programming at a time when virtually no car radios and few table radios had an FM band. Today, over 90% of all radio listening in the station’s service area is FM listening. WDAC gained the distinction in recent years of being the #1 Christian radio station in the United States based on percentage of metro share, a valued measurement of audience listening.

Known for almost sixty years as the “Voice of Christian Radio”, the station’s 24 full and part-time employees provide programming 24 hours daily and devote 30% of the air time to Bible teaching programs. The remainder of the broadcast day is made up of beautiful Christian music, news and issues programs.

From the “early farmer’s milk house” architecture of 1959, to a modern motif remodeling in 1964, the station now occupies a beautiful replica of the Lancaster County Courthouse built in 1985. The original courthouse was designed in 1730 by Andrew Hamilton, who designed Independence Hall the same year.