Technical Profile: WRRX

FM Technical Profile: WRRX

Station Name:: Magic 106
Frequency:: 106.1
Format:: Urban Adult Contemporary
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] Located between West Saint Catherine Avenue and West Younge Street, just west of North Pace Boulevard (FL-292) in Pensacola.
Power (ERP):: 5.1 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 354 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :

PS-WRRX-FM
Time-[?]
Text-WRRX - Magic 106.1 #1 For Classic Soul & Today's R&B
PTY-R&B
PI-WRRX-FM
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Picture] Image showing the display of an Insignia HD portable decoding the PI (call sign) and Radio Text fields. From October 2015.
[Picture] Image showing the display of a Mazda sedan's radio decoding the broken PS (station name) and format fields. From March 2016
[Picture] Image showing the display of a Hyundai vehicle's radio decoding the PS (station name), PTY (format) and Radio Text fields. From August 2023.

[Studio] Street View imagery of the Cumulus Pensacola stations' studios off Marcus Pointe Boulevard in the Brent community.
Owner:: Cumulus Broadcasting LLC
History:: It appears that this station dates back to an original construction permit first applied for by Maranatha Broadcasting way back in 1985. They applied for a Class A signal on 106.1 MHz, licensed to Gulf Breeze, a beachfront community south of Pensacola. The FCC didn't grant the application until August 1999. The first grant was for 3 kW from the water tower at the intersection of Gulf Breeze Parkway (US-98) and Avalon Boulevard (FL-281). (Of note, today this is the transmitter site for the town's only LPFM station.) The original call sign assigned was WZRO, but it was never used on air. Instead, the WRRX call sign was applied before the station went on air.

In March 2000, the station was granted a modification to the permit to relocate to a tower behind the Escambia County Emergency Services complex, just south of West Fairfield Drive and east of North L Street in Pensacola. This facility had a larger coverage area of the Pensacola metro area, as well as an increase in power to 3.9 kW. In April of 2000, the license was transferred to Cumulus Broadcasting. They filed a license to cover for this facility in July 2000 and the station signed on as Classic Rock-formatted "Rock 106".

The station flipped to an Adult Urban Contemporary format as "Magic 106" in 2004. Early on, the station was likely programmed separately from Cumulus' other Adult Urban station, WDLT, in Mobile, but over time the two seemed to slowly start carrying the same syndicated programming. In July 2012, WDLT was bumped up to a big 100 kW signal on 104.1 MHz, making this station somewhat redundant as it's signal is completely contained within WDLT's now.

The RDS, when it has operated, has often had nonsense, garbled text or a default "RDS PS" displayed on compatible car radios. In May 2018, the RDS disappeared.

In April 2023 it was noted that the station's RDS was back, showing "WRRX-FM" in the station name (PS) field but a format of "Classical Music". The station was granted a construction permit at the end of May 2023, to move to a new tower approximately half a mile southwest of the previously licensed site. The change will include a drop in antenna height from 406 to 354 feet HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain) but an increase in power from 3.9 kW to 5.1 kW, giving roughly the same coverage area as before. A license to cover for that facility was filed in early August 2023.