The Federal Communications Commission assigned the call letters WREF to the frequency on January 18, 1984. WREF began broadcasting on March 15, 1985.

WREF programmed a nostalgia/big band format from sign on through sale to Berkshire in 1996 when the new owners switched the format to oldies.

In late March 2004, WREF became the first station to air Scott Shannon's "True Oldies Channel." After a period of tweaking on WREF, Shannon put the format into nationwide syndication in July 2004.

On February 1, 2011, WREF rebranded as "B107.3," adopted the call letters WAXB and began a rebroadcast of 850AM on FM translator W297AN (107.3 FM licensed to Danbury, CT). The WAXB calls had previously been in the market at 105.5FM before Cumulus abandoned the oldies format on this frequency in 2002.