The station operating at 1570 kHz in the Atlanta area first began broadcasting as WCPK, a 1,000-watt daytime-only outlet licensed to College Park, Georgia, on March 21, 1959. The station changed its call letters to WEAS—using a designation freshly vacated by 950 AM, causing confusion—in March 1960, then to WEAD on January 1, 1961; it was a "good music" station with studios at a Hilton Inn near Atlanta International Airport, in Hapeville. College Park Broadcasting Corporation, the original licensee, filed for bankruptcy in 1963, and the station was sold at public auction that April; the buyer was Metro Atlanta Broadcasting. The call letters were changed to WAIA, reflecting its airport location, in 1964.
