Technical Profile: WZYP

FM Technical Profile: WZYP

Station Name:: 104-3 ZYP
Frequency:: 104.3
Format:: Contemporary Hit Radio
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] East of Wall Triana Highway, north of Nick Davis Road, just south of Harvest, on Capshaw Mountain.
Power (ERP):: 100 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 1,115 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :

PS-WZYP All the hits…
Time-present
Text-104.3 WZYP All the hits - 10 songs in a row
PTY-Top 40
PI-WYZP-FM

AUX: 30 kW @ 702 feet HAAT. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Studio] Street View of the Huntsville market Cumulus studios on Lee Highway in Athens.
[Image] RDS text display on an Insignia HD portable radio, from September 2015.
[Image] RDS text display from an LG Insite cell phone, showing the PTY (format), PS (station name) and Radio Text fields. From June 2019.
[Image] A picture of a long-running WZYP sticker from the 80's. 33 kb.
[Image] A picture of a WZYP t-shirt from the summer of 1986. 72 kb.
[Image] A still image from a commercial ZYP's morning show of 1990, featuring Tom Grant and Karen Foster. The promo was shot in the studio. 47 kb.
Owner:: Cumulus Broadcasting LLC
History:: Athens Broadcast Company (H. F. Dunnavant), owners of 730 AM, WJMW, received a permit for a new FM station in May of 1958, for a Class A signal running 1.056 kW from a Gates BF-1A from the top of the existing AM tower on Hines Street in Athens, for 104.3 MHz. The station went on the air later that year as WJMW-FM. The calls changed to WJOF in 1958, and it's likely that the station had an automated Easy Listening format from this point onwards.

The station got a boost in power to 50 kW in the summer of 1965. They used a Gates FM-10G transmitter and a Gates FMA-6B 6 bay antenna to help increase coverage of the growing Huntsville area.

The station sought to further increase their coverage in 1977, when they sought a permit to move the FM antenna up to Capshaw Mountain and boost power to 100 kW. Decatur Telecable filed a petition for reconsideration on the permit, which held up the build-out for several years, and required some compromises such as relocating the antenna and lowering the overall height. While working through those issues, the format appears to have flipped to Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) as early as 1978. That year, the station's legal ID was changed to "WJOF Athens-Huntsville" in anticipation of the full market coverage their mountaintop transmitter would provide.

The Capshaw Mountain facility finally signed on in the spring of 1981. The station used a Sparta 625A transmitter, which fed a Phelps-Dodge CFM H.P. 10 antenna with 10 bays. In 1983, the call sign changed to WZYP and it's been hit music ever since. Later in the 80s, control of Athens Broadcasting was handed to Bill Dunnavant, and under his ownership the station eventually fell into the hands of Cumulus (along with several other area stations) in 2003.

In the spring of 2024 the station swapped antennas out, moving to an ERI Rototiller type antenna with 8 full spaced bays. The change necessitated some minor changes to the license, including a small correction of tower site coordinates. There was no effective change in power, height or other major factors. A license to cover for that change was granted in mid-May 2024. That same month Cumulus was granted a permit for a 30 kW auxiliary facility on the main transmitter tower site. A license to cover for the auxiliary facility was granted in mid-August 2024.