Wikipedia
WPTF (680 AM; "NewsRadio 680") is a news and talk radio station serving the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The station is owned by Curtis Media Group. Its call letters date back to the former longtime owner of the station, Durham Life Insurance Company, whose motto was "We Protect The Family." Its studios are located in Raleigh, and the transmitter tower is in Cary, North Carolina.
Programs on WPTF include local news blocks in morning drive, noon and afternoons, national talk shows like consumer and family finances expert Clark Howard, psychologist Dr. Joy Browne, and the overnight political show Red Eye Radio. In addition, the station also hosts local talk shows with Bill LuMaye and Tom Kearney.
From 1977 to 1991, WPTF was sister station to WPTF-TV, the longtime NBC affiliate in the Triangle. That station is now WRDC, "MyRDC," an affiliate of MyNetworkTV.
WPTF is one of the two most powerful AM radio stations in North Carolina, along with WBT in Charlotte. They both run at 50,000 watts with a non-directional signal in the daytime and a directional signal at night to protect other radio stations on their frequency. As a Class A station, WBT has more protections from other radio stations, while WPTF enjoys Class B status. Its daytime signal gives AM 680 at least grade B coverage as far west as Charlotte, as far east as Wilmington and as far north as the Roanoke suburbs. Its nighttime directional signal can be picked up well south into the Bahamas and other parts of the Caribbean and was supposedly heard in Venezuela at one time. However, it is somewhat spotty in parts of Virginia, only 50 miles north. It must avoid interfering with several 50,000 watt stations to the north, also on 680 kHz, including WRKO in Boston and CFTR in Toronto, as well as the dominant station on 680, KNBR San Francisco to the west, so WPTF's nighttime signal is stronger to the south.