PA Radio: FCC Losing Patience With WQZS-FM, Meyersdale

Roger Wahl

The Federal Communications Commission has given Meyersdale-based WQZS  93.3 FM radio station owner and on-air personality Roger Wahl several breaks in a procedure exploring whether to pull his license. But no more, according to The Daily American.

The fate of WQZS hangs in the balance with Wahl's compliance or non-compliance with two FCC deadlines this month. WQZS, an oldies and rock station, is the last independently owned radio station in Somerset County and one of just a few in the entire region.

The FCC's ongoing investigation with Wahl began when he acquired a criminal record in 2020.

An FCC order issued Friday addressed two separate motions filed by the commission's enforcement bureau to compel Wahl to send information needed for its proceedings.

According to an FCC order dated March 8, Administrative Law Judge Jane Hinckley Halprin was concerned that Wahl wasn't treating the proceeding with "appropriate seriousness" during the initial status conference. Parties are expected to abide by the FCC's rules, she said.

"No fewer than five times has the presiding judge made this clear during the brief lifespan of this proceeding," Hinckley Halprin wrote.

Wahl faces the potential revocation of his FCC license. This is "the most severe penalty that the commission imposes on a licensee. Yet when ordered by the presiding judge to do something as simple as forward an email that he had already sent, he did nothing," the judge wrote in the discovery order.

"This proceeding will not continue on this trajectory," Hinckley Halprin wrote. "(Any) additional failure to satisfy a deadline or follow an order of the president judge could provide a basis for dismissal of this proceeding, which, in turn, will lead to revocation of his FCC license."

Then, she provided him with one more opportunity to comply with the FCC orders.

In September 2019, Wahl was arrested and accused of creating a fake dating profile. He used it to solicit men to rape a woman known to him, and was accused of placing a trail camera in the woman's bathroom without her knowledge or consent.

In March 2020, Wahl filed an application to transfer control of WQZS to his daughter, Wendy Sipple, for $10. The FCC approved the transfer on June 1, 2020.

Wahl pleaded guilty on July 8, 2020, to a felony charge of criminal use of a communications facility, and misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment, unlawful dissemination of an intimate image, tampering with evidence and identity theft. The FCC reversed its decision in a July 13, 2020, order, returning the application to pending status.

Wahl was sentenced on Nov. 17, 2020. He was placed on probation for three years, with four months of electronic monitoring. He was also forbidden from being on the air during the electronic monitoring.

On October 19, 2021, the FCC issued a hearing designation order beginning a proceeding to revoke WQZS's license as a result of his crime. The application to transfer WQZS to Sipple was put in abeyance.

Wahl has until Friday to file information that was first due in March and then extended until Friday. He has until May 25 to fulfill the FCC's request for response to questions and additional documents.