Technical Profile: WBSA

AM Technical Profile: WBSA

Frequency:: 1300
Format:: Religious
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] At the corner of McVille and Willis Roads in Guntersville, east of US-431.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW; Night: 37 watts
Antenna:: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Studio] Street View imagery of the station's studio, in front of the AM tower on Willis Road in Boaz.
// W228DD Boaz, AL
History:: This station came on the air with 500 watts in October 1959 as WAVC, by Alber Vearl Cicero (Cicero Broadcasting Co.) The station was sold in the late 60's to Glenn Cornelius (as Radio Sand Mountain), who change the calls to WBSA (for Boaz-SAnd mountain). By '68 was up to the current 1 kW of daytime power. Most likely had either a full service variety format or played country music. By the early 80's it was mostly country but with the occasional pop hit programming. The station was sold again in the early 80s to Sand Mountain Advertising, and under their ownership acquired a gospel music format. Current owner Watkins Broadcasting bought the station for $100,000 in November of 1994 and changed it to southern gospel; it's been religiously formatted ever since. The station acquired an FM translator during the first AM Revitalization window in 2016; that station went on the air in late May 2016 on 93.5 MHz.