With an intended target date of June 16, 1977, unexpected delays pushed WQON-FM's debut on the air to 12:06 p.m., November 6, 1978.
All were trained by Bob Greenwood and several have continued with successful careers in radio in Traverse City, Bakersfield, California, Houghton Lake and Petoskey.
In May 1985 the station was purchased by Robert Ditmer and his son Bob, owners of WWSJ of St. Johns, Michigan.
In 1994, the Ditmers, despite having acquired a construction permit to raise WQON's power to 50,000 watts and change its frequency, decided to leave the radio business in Crawford County and concentrate on their interests in St. Johns.
In a move to take advantage of a strong country format, Gannon Broadcasting Systems requested approval from the FCC to allow WQON-FM and WGRY-FM to switch frequencies and to change 100.1 to 100.3 MHz.
Most of Y100's programming (outside of weekday mornings and weekend specialty shows) was satellite-fed from Dial Global's Hot Country network.
Longtime northern Michigan radio personality Pete Michaels was the morning DJ on Y-100.3 FM WGRY.
In July 2012, it was announced that WGRY-FM and sister stations WGRY and WQON were being sold by William Gannon to Sheryl and Jerry Coyne (d/b/a Blarney Stone Broadcasting, Inc.).
No change to the station's country format was planned although the Coynes expressed a desire to add more local programming.
Home of Detroit Lions Football, University of Michigan Football/Basketball and Voice of Grayling Viking High School Sports.
In September 2016, it was announced that the Coyne's would acquire the properties of Northern Radio of Michigan[3] The transaction would have put competitor WKLT under the same ownership as WQON.
Contest rules on the WQON website referenced Blarney Stone having a Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) with Northern.
This time, the Coynes would partner with Roy Henderson, an owner-operator whose handful of Traverse City area stations were facing a multitude of financial and technical issues, including legal action from the Federal Communications Commission.