AM Technical Profile: WQCR

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Frequency:
1500
Format:
Regional Mexican
Transmitter Location:
[map] [bird's eye] [street view] Just east of intersection of Shelby Co. 24 and Camp Branch Rd., east of Alabaster.
Power (ERP):
Day: 2.3 kW
Critical Hours: 1.2 kW
Night: 3 watts
Antenna:
1 tower
Other Information:
0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCdata]
[Radio-Locator]
[Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Bhamwiki] Information on the station from the WQMS era
History:
The station originally started out in the late 70's or early 80's as WQMS, with a satellite-fed adult contemporary format.  The owner at the time commented that there was no sense in hiring live announcers; his big city competitors (like WSGN, WERC and WAPI) would get those.  It may have later had a stink with talk and sports.  On 1 December 1984 the calls changed to WGTT and a long line of formats were to follow.  First was country as "Great Country", then oldies as "Great Oldies", southern gospel as — you guessed it — "Great Gospel", then later back to oldies… then gospel again by the 90's with music, sermons and live & local announcers. At that time, it was still a 1,000 watt daytimer whose studios and transmitter  were off Industrial Drive in Alabaster. In December of 2000 the calls switched to WQCR (Quality Christian Radio) and the transmitter site was eventually moved to an area east of town. In September 2002 the station switched to Spanish-language programming as "Radio Alegria". It later became part of the "La 10 Q" network of AMs across North Alabama. In January 2009 it was reported that this station was being simulcast on Bessemer area AM'er WZGX and Lexington, Alabama station WJHX.  WJHX and WZGX are owned by Bar Broadcasting, while WQCR is owned by Riviera Broadcasting.  WQCR dropped the simulcast in the fall of 2012 for what appears to be a Spanish "Juan" (Jack FM) type variety hits format.  This station was reported to be off the air at the start of June 2015, but back on shortly thereafter.  After several years with "Juan", the format appears to have (as of April 2017) now become a simulcast of the "El Jefa" regional Mexican format of Birmingham's 1220 WAYE.