WGBZ "The Beat" debuts in Anniston

Anniston has lost an adult contemporary format this week to music that hasn't had much presence in the city before: hip hop.  AM 1490, WSYA has been heard on a translators at 104.3 in the Anniston and 99.1 MHz in Oxford.  The trimulcast is the first hip hop/urban station targeting Anniston directly on FM.

That's not to say it's the only urban signal in town, though.  WHOG, licensed to Hobson City has been blasting away with 500 watts of monaural power for a while now with rap music, but it's just a small AM daytimer.  It'll be interesting to see if WHOG tries to battle it out against the FM competition or go off in a different direction.  Previously, Annistoners have had to DX V-103 from Atlanta, 95-7 Jamz or Hot 107.7 from Birmingham.

Auburn transator update

A move-in from Union, Georgia has finally made its way to Auburn.  Station W234BQ on 94.7 MHz is said to be relaying WGZZ (Wings FM), although it's probably actually carrying Wings' HD-2 feed of AM talker WANI.   This puts the number of FM translators carrying WANI at three.  There's also one on 98.7 and one on 106.5 MHz.

The W234BQ translator was formerly W238BZ, licensed to Union, Georgia and on 95.5 MHz.  After it migrated to Alabama, it was located in the Hatchechubbee community, but may not have ever air from that location.

Tuscaloosa translator update

The license to cover has come through for the move-in from Demopolis on 105.1 MHz.  W286BV has 200 watts and is said to be rebroadcasting AM station WTBC.  WTBC recently dropped talk for classic hits as "The River" to coincide with being rebroadcast on FM.

WKRE Argo is on the air.

The license to cover permit just came through last week.  WKRE is owned by "Taking Back The Airwaves Ministries" based in Irondale, who also run the online Revolution Radio format.  WKRE seems to have come on for testing back around the 17th of March.  The 4 kW signal (vertical, with a whoppin' 1 watt horizontal) appears to be something of a disappointment to people who have been keeping up with the station's progress.

The station's going to have a tough road to hoe if it wants to be heard in Birmingham.  Although silent, Bessemer is home to the construction permit of WSJL, the more-off-than-on religious barker for western Jefferson County's population of armadillos and the occasional miner at Jim Walter.  6 kW from Bessemer will certainly preclude the signal from moving closer in or being heard at all in Birmingham or points west.

University of Alabama to buy Spring Hill College's WHIL in Mobile

Mobile's Fox 10 news is reporting the pending sale of Jesuit-run Spring Hill College's public radio station, WHIL, to the University of Alabama.  Terms have not been disclosed.

The University of Alabama currently owns and programs stations in Tuscaloosa, Florence and Selma, and is heard on translators in Decatur and Huntsville.

It is unknown if WHIL's programming will change to mirror the APR network.  WHIL carries more classical and NPR news programming than APR, which has more jazz, blues and PRI/APR news/entertainment programs.

Mobile is a fairly well saturated market for public radio.  Besides WHIL, most residents can hear the Mississippi Public Broadcasting station from Biloxi, plus the University of West Florida's WUWF in Pensacola.

W25DR Jasper's license deleted by FCC

W25DR, LPTV outlet for Trinity Broadcasting Network in Jasper, has had their license deleted by the FCC.  It is unknown if the station is still broadcasting or has ceased operation.  The listing has been deleted from the LPTV listings.

Oldies and classic hits switch places in Columbus, Georgia

Longtime contributor Travis has alerted me to a change on the radio dial in Columbus, a market we don't normally hear much from.  WRLD 95.3 has been running classic hits as "The Drive" for a while, but has apparently dropped the format to return to its previous one as "Boomer 95.3" with oldies music.  The name and classic hits format are now on WRGC AM & FM, as "106.9 The Drive".  WRGC had picked up the oldies format from WRLD when it changed a while back.  I'm fuzzy on when WRLD dropped Boomer for Drive, and the exact date for the switcharoo is unclear, too.  It goes back at least to January this year.

WAYH translator in Cullman on the move.

Cullman translator W249BI has been licensed for 250 watts on 97.3 MHz to serve Hartselle, and for a long time had a construction permit to move the facility north of town, about halfway to Decatur, covering much of the small town of Flint City.  That permit seems to have disappeared now, replaced with a new CP for W250BM, on 97.9 MHz, with 100 watts.  That facility is shown to be southwest of Hartselle, a little closer to Falkville but really in the middle of cow country.

It'll be interesting to see where this one migrates to now that it's on a different frequency.  It seems an odd choice, because there's not a lot of wiggle room that I can see.  Winfield and Huntsville have full power stations on 97.7 MHz, and Huntsville even has an active translator on that frequency, too.  Huntsville has a translator on 98.1 MHz, and the west Alabama country giant WTXT is also on that frequency.  About the only direction this thing can go is south.

Columbus-area W299AX on the move.

Ten watt translator W299AX is currently licensed to the community of Laconia, Alabama, and transmits from a facility north of Phenix City.  It also covers part of Columbus, Georgia.  The translator has just received a permit to move to a site just west of Phenix City, much closer to the community of Laconia.  But with this move comes a city of license change across the state line to Columbus.   So when it was closer to Columbus, it was licensed to Laconia.  Now it's closer to Laconia and licensed to Columbus.  Such is the wacky world of translators.

The facility has been previously listed as relaying Georgia's Peach State Public Radio station WJSP, licensed to nearby Warm Springs, Georgia.  With the construction permit, the station is now being shown to relay WJEP out of Cusseta, Georgia.  The owner is Edgewater Broadcasting but it's unclear which religious network the parent station is carrying.

Baldwin County's W279AT making the move up highway 59.

W279AT (103.7 MHz) is currently licensed to Robertsdale and listed as relaying WSTF out of Andalusia.  As far as I have sampled, the facility has never been built or put on the air.  It's now receiving a construction permit to move up Alabama highway 59 to the next town, Loxley.   The new site will be less than 30 feet of the ground, with 10 vertical watts of power, located behind the big Loxley Church of God just south of town.

Will this be another dead facility or does it stand a chance of getting put on?  It's certainly plausible that it may wind up being operated by the church since the antenna site is on church property, and the short height means it can be attached to a light pole or other non-tower support.  We'll see what happens.

Mobile TV: The Country Channel moves from WFGX to WEAR

All country-music videos channel “The Country Channel” has moved from WFGX-DT's .3 subchannel to WEAR-DT's .2 subchannel.  This leaves CW network's WFNA-DT as the only broadcast network in the market left on a station with no subchannels.  It also means ABC HD will likely take a picture quality hit to make room for the extra bits needed to carry the music channel.