Technical Profile: DWIQR

AM Technical Profile: DWIQR

Frequency:: 1410
Format:: R&B Oldies, Gospel
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] [street view: tx shack] South of Prattville on Reese Ferry Road, about 1.6 miles west of the intersection with US-31 on the eastbound side.
Power (ERP):: Day: 5 kW; Night: 1 kW
Antenna:: Day: 3 towers, major lobes due WNW, SSE and ENE [pattern - PDF]; Night: 3 towers, major lobe ESE, minor lobe WNW [pattern - PDF]
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]

Silent
History:: Prattville Radio, Inc., was granted a new construction permit in 1968 for a station on 1410 kHz in Prattville, with 5 kW days and 1 kW nights, from a three tower directional array located on Highway 82 west of town. A Gates BC-5H transmitter was used. The original call sign was WPXC (PiXie), and at the beginning it had a "Light Music" format.

By the 70's, the station was known to be doing a Country format.

In 1980 the license was transferred to Radio WPXC (T. O. McDowell, Jr. and Al Finch). Interestingly, they wound up changing the call sign to WTOA after acquisition, and dumped the "Radio WPXC" company name one year later. The license was voluntarily assigned to JMR Communications, Inc., in March 1981. Through the late 70's and into the 80's, the station seemed to experiment with different formats regularly, including Adult Contemporary, Oldies, and then MOR (Middle of the Road). The station was also off the air here and there. American Trust Broadcasting Company acquired the station in 1986. It appears this company morphed into Canterbury Broadcasting at some point later in the decade. The station's call sign changed to WSKN in November 1988. In October of 1989, it changed again to WRNB. Despite what the call sign would suggest, Broadcasting Yearbook from that year shows it as still having an Adult Contemporary/Oldies mix format.

The station was dark through most of the early 90's, until being purchased for $175,000 by American Trust Corporation in February 1995. They brought the station back on, this time as WIQR, with a Gospel format. While they weren't paying attention, the license lapsed in 1996, and the FCC deleted the license. When it came back on, it appears to have had a short run with Radio Disney before switching to a News/Talk format in the year 2000. During this period it was reported the station ran daytime only due to issues with the nighttime transmitter. The station fell silent yet again until it purchased in February 2001 by Star Power Communications Corporation for $167,000. They brought it back with a Sports format as of 1 April 2002, with emphasis on local high school and regional sports teams. Star Power was able to get the transmitter repaired so that night service was restored. Religious programming was added on weekends in the summer of 2004. In the summer of 2005, they added Spanish language programming on the weekends in addition to the religious programming. By 2009, it appears the weekend specialty programming was gone, and it was back to all-sports with Tampa Devil Rays baseball affiliation.

The station was reported silent in April 2010, and back on in May 2011 with distorted, overloaded audio. That summer, it was listed online as an affiliate of Yahoo! Sports Radio. They dropped Yahoo! Sports in September 2012 for a full time Spanish language format, including some programming from ESPN Deportes. In April 2015, the station reportedly dropped Spanish for R&B Oldies. It was reported silent yet again near the beginning of December 2015.

After being off the air for over a year, the FCC deleted the license in March 2019.