It went through numerous owners over the years before being bought by John King (known as John Kunsky until 1936) and George Trendle, owners of WXYZ in Detroit, in 1930. They bought Grand Rapids' second radio station, WASH, a year later; the two stations had shared the same frequency, for four years. The station operated as WOOD-WASH (with WASH on the air during the day and WOOD at night) until 1942, when the WASH license was dropped. At about the same time, WOOD's broadcast power was increased from 500 watts to 5,000 watts.