Technical Profile: WACQ

AM Technical Profile: WACQ

Frequency:: 580
Format:: Classic Hits
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] South of Tuskegee on US-29, just southeast of the intersection with CR-46.
Power (ERP):: Day: 500 watts; Night: 139 watts
Antenna:: Day & night: 1 tower, omnidirectional
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCData.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Studio] Street View imagery of the station's small studio on Barnett Boulevard in Tallassee; behind the building is a studio-to-transmitter tower with the FM translator antenna visible near the top.; // W253CZ Tuskegee, AL
History:: This station dates back to July of 1952 when it came on the air as WTUS under the Radio Tuskegee company, as a daytime-only operation. In either '58 or '59, the calls changed to WABT. Those calls had previously been on Birmingham's channel 13, and would later show up again on a station in the Huntsville area. Maco Broadcasting owned the station by the 70's, and under their ownership the format was Middle-of-the-Road (MOR).

The station was acquired by the curiously-named All Channel TV Service, Inc. in 1973; they changed calls to WBIL (for We Believe In Love) and flipped the format to service the black community, including urban contemporary music. During its years as WBIL, the station converted to 24 hour operation with a small amount of night power.

After nearly 40 years of service to east central Alabama's black community, the Montgomery Radio & TV website reported that Carrville's WACQ would be taking over the 580 kHz frequency from WBIL; although the move was planned for August 2011, it wasn't until June 2012 that the switch actually happened. A planned tower move to better compete in Montgomery never materialized, either. The WBIL calls were discarded for WACQ in July 2012. (WACQ, on 1130, fell silent and took the WALQ calls.) A year later the station picked up an FM translator companion on 101.1 MHz.

The station received a construction permit for a new translator on 98.1 MHz in Tuskegee in January, 2018. In July 2018, they filed to move the translator permit to a site between Tallassee and Tuskegee, while their existing translator on 101.1 MHz will move halfway between Tuskegee and Auburn, to rebroadcast Auburn's WAUD. That facility signed on in early September 2018. In February 2019, the W251CM translator signed on at its new dial position at 98.5 MHz, bring the station back to the FM dial again. The new call sign is W253CZ.