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.

A whole mess of LDTV CPs issued for Montgomery, Columbus. Dothan just gets one.

A very quick rundown of several new permits issued for low power digital television stations.  These are all being issued to what I call “spectrum squatters” who will most likely never build anything out, instead opting to resell the permits to interested buyers for a profit.  My proclamation here is the same as the new AM station permits:  I'll be shocked if ANY of these ever get put on the air.

First in Columbus, where new permits are issued for channels 14, 22, 27 and 47.  They are all directional facilities, with either 6 or 15 kW.  They join an existing unbuilt permit on channel 43, also owned by one of the squatters.

Next to Dothan, which picks up one more permit for channel 43.  This appears to be the first spectrum squatter foray into the market.

Finally, Montgomery, which sees a total of five new allocations: channels 14, 30, 36, 45 and 50. All but channel 14 are directional.  Powers range from 1 to 5 to 15 kW. This is a big jump in allocations for Montgomery, which has just one low power digital station in the area, and two analog low power stations.  

WASG files license to cover, goes silent moments later

It appears that troubled south Alabama AM facility WASG may have had a brief appearance from its new facilities in Mobile earlier this year.  A program test authority was filed in late January 2011 and a license to cover in late February.  It just showed up yesterday in the daily digest, but a cursory check of the AM dial from the area shows the station is still off the air.  It's possible the station signed on just long enough to earn the license to cover, then shut off again.

WASG dates back to the early 80's when it was one of the few stations owned by Native Americans.  At the time, it was on 1140 kHz and ran C-QUAM AM stereo.  The station later moved to 550 kHz, and fell silent after new owners acquired an FM companion.  Pensacola Christian Radio later bought the station, moved it to Escambia County, Florida, but it didn't last long on air there, despite getting 10 kW days.  The station got a CP to move to Mobile in 2009.