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Station history

The station first went on the air in 1927 after being licensed by the Department of Commerce as WMBR in January, 1927.The station was licensed to Premier Electric Company on Franklin Street. The license was for 100 Watts on a frequency of 1109 kHz.

In a 1987 letter, Harry J Mills, the first station engineer, recalled the station was owned by Frank J Reynolds, who owned the Zenith Radio dealership in Tampa. The studios were located in the Floridan Hotel, with the transmitter on the roof.

By the end of May 1927, the Tampa radio dealers association was coordinating the daytime broadcast and sponsorships of WDAE and WMBR, with WMBR broadcasting 1 hour a day from the Premier Electric theater.

In 1929, WMBR reported election results in coordination with the Tampa Tribune newspaper, with station owner Frank J Reynolds doing the reporting. the location of the station studio is still reported to be in the Floridan Hotel.

From 1929 to 1931 the station is listed in newspaper schedules on 1210, 1360, and 1370 kHz The changes in frequency were mandated by the recently formed Federal Radio Commission in November 1929.

In 1933, the FRC approved relocating the station to Jacksonville, Florida at the request of station owner Frank J. Reynolds, leaving WDAE as the only station licensed to Tampa

The station would later be relaunched in 1946 as WALT by Walter Tison, president and general manager-sales manager of Tampa Broadcasting (and later, founder of television station WTVT). WALT was a pioneer Top-40 station in the Tampa area. In the 1960s, a weekly Sunday afternoon broadcast from Tampa Municipal Beach entitled Beach Party featured The Littlest DJ, Ricky Barone, later known as Richard Barone of The Bongos.

In 1970, Suncoast Radio, the owners of future WQYK-FM 99.5, bought WALT and relaunched it as a country music station, WQYK. The signal was simulcast with WQYK-FM until 1976, when the AM station was sold to a religious broadcaster and its call letters changed to WTIS. (The WALT callsign would later be reassigned to AM and FM stations in Meridian, Mississippi.)

In addition to its regular religious programming, WTIS aired The Debra Evans in the Morning Show, The Herman Cain Show, The Pete O'Shea Show and The Adam Smith Show.

On January 1, 2017 WTIS notified the Federal Communications Commission that it had suspended operations on December 31, 2016 because it had lost its lease to the transmitter site, located near the intersection of 50th Street and Causeway Boulevard in the Palm River-Clair Mel area of Hillsborough County. It requested authorization to remain off the air for six months while it searched for a new site. The authorization was granted on January 18, 2017. The station has now been sold and returned with an oldies pop music format, however it is now playing Tropical Salsa and Merengue and it is scheduled to become a Spanish language music station on April 30, 2018.