FM Technical Profile: WAHR

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Station Name:

Star 99.1

Frequency:

99.1

Format:

Variety Hits

Transmitter Location:

[map] [street view] [bird's eye] Off Juniper Drive NW, west of Pulaski Pike NW.

Power (ERP):

100 kW

Antenna:

Omnidirectional

Antenna HAAT:

984 feet

Other Information:

60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

:PS-Star99.1 Time-[unknown] Text-song title / artist PTY-[unknown] PI-WAHR-FM



HD-2: Classic Hip-Hop/R&B
"98.1 The Beat"
// W251AC Capshaw
// W298BZ Huntsville
// WLOR Huntsville

HD-3: Oldies

More Information:

[FCC]

[FCCdata]

[Radio-Locator]

[Wikipedia]

[Facebook]
[Twitter]

[Image] Image of the RDS text display of an Insignia HD portable showing the PI (call sign) and Radio Text fields being decoded, from a few years ago.
[Image] RDS decoded on an AT&T Insite phone in Florence showing the PS and Radio Text fields as well as PTY (format), May 2019.

[Studio] Street View imagery of the Rocket City Broadcasting studios at The Boardwalk in Huntsville.

Owner:

Southern Stone Communications

History:

This station dates back to an original construction permit issued to local record store owner Arnold H. Hornbuckle, granted in December 1958 for a new FM station on 99.1 MHz licensed to Huntsville.  The original grant was for 3.219 kW from atop the Huntsville Times Building, with an antenna height of just 44.5 feet HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain).  A license to cover for the facility was filed in July 1959.  It transmitted with an Andrew 1304-2 two section FM antenna fed by a Gates FM1B transmitter.  Interestingly, the station was authorized from the get-go to operate two SCA (Subsidiary Communications Authority) channels, on 41 and 67 kHz. The studios were also located in the Times Building, with the station often touting that they were broadcasting from "the top of the Times Building."  The WAHR call sign (standing for Arnold Hornbuckle Records) has been the same since the beginning.

Ownership was transferred to WAHR, Inc. in 1962. Early on, the station was known for "fine arts" programming including Classical Music.  (See the Wikipedia link for more from this era of the station's history.)

In August 1977, the station was granted a move to Drake Mountain with an upgrade to 100 kW at 538 feet HAAT, using a Gates FM-12 twelve section FM antenna fed by a Gates FMS-12 transmitter.  A license to cover for this facility was filed in September 1978, but with Harris branded equipment instead of Gates.  A Harris FM-20K fed a Harris FM-H10 ten bay antenna.  It's likely around this time when the station dropped the Classical music for Soft Adult Contemporary.  (Public broadcaster WLRH had signed on in 1976 and begun playing classical music.) 

The station was granted a permit to boost antenna height to its current 984 feet HAAT in January 1989.  A license to cover for that facility was granted in November 1990.

Hornbuckle would continue to own the station until his retirement in 1999.  He sold the station to a former WAHR jock named Steve Shelton (as STG Media) in July 1999 for an undisclosed sum.  By this point, the station was a straightforward Adult Contemporary station known as "Star 99". 

The studios moved to a new complex housing co-owned WRTT and WLOR at 1900 Memorial Parkway in March 2001.  The entire cluster was sold to Black Crow Media in November 2001.

For years, this was the only top-rated Huntsville station to actually be licensed to the city of Huntsville — top 40 WZYP is licensed to Athens; country WDRM to Decatur; WWXQ to Trinity and rock WTAK to Hartselle.

Over the course of the summer of 2009, the station was noted to have shifted towards a more Hot Adult Contemporary presentation, however the station morphed to a Variety Hits format after crosstown competitor WWFF flipped to an 80's and 90's format.

After Black Crow declared bankruptcy, the the station license was transferred to Southern Stone Communications in December 2011.

The station showed up on the iBiquity HD radio guide website in early 2019, although it wasn't active at the time.  That HD signal signed on in early April 2019, and the HD2 came on in October 2019, airing the "98.1 The Beat" Classic Urban format from WLOR.  After Thanksgiving 2019, WLOR and one of the translators it was feeding broke off to do Christmas music, but rejoined "The Beat" format heard here on the HD2 format after the start of 2020.

In early January 2025, it was reported that an HD3 subchannel had been added, featuring commercial free (and liner/ID free) Oldies music.