Technical Profile: WAVU

AM Technical Profile: WAVU

Frequency:: 630
Format:: Religious
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] On the appropriately named WAVU Circle, just off US-431 in Albertville.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW; Night: 28 watts
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

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[Studio] Street View imagery of the WQSB and WAVU studios on US-431 in Albertville.

// W298BG Blue Mountain, AL

Owned by Sand Mountain Broadcasting Service, Inc.
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit issued to Pat Murphy Courington for a new station on 630 kHz, with 500 watts, daytime only, in February 1947. The location was listed as a site approximately 2.5 miles southeast of the center of Albertville on what was then known as 338 East Baltimore Street. (Today, this is AL-205). A Gates BC 500-D was listed in an amended application, replacing the Western Electric 443-A1 listed in the initial application. A license to cover for this station was filed in March 1948 and granted by the FCC in August 1948. The call letters from the beginning were WAVU.

The licensee name was changed to Sand Mountain Broadcasting Service (Pat Courington and Ivo H. Sparkman). That same year they were granted an permit to add an FM antenna to the tower for the purposes of launching WAVU-FM on 105.1 MHz.

In April 1955, the station applied to boost power to 1 kW with an RCA BTA-1M and move to a site "1.5 miles southeast of Albertville on Route 241". This was granted in November 1955 and a license to cover for the move was filed in Just 1956. From then on, the station has broadcast from the same location they're at today (see above).

Going back to at least the mid-70's, the station's format was listed in various Broadcasting Yearbooks as either a Variety format or Middle-of-the-Road (MOR). Starting in the late 70's, however, the station was listed as a Country and Western format.

That Country format only lasted for a few years, as by the early 80's, it had returned to the MOR format while the country had moved to the FM sister station, now known as WQSB.; From about the mid 80's to 1995, the station was known to have an Adult Contemporary format, although the Broadcasting Yearbook for 1993 also notes the station as having Oldies as an additional music format. In 1995, however, the station flipped to Southern Gospel, beginning a run of religious programming that continues to this day. It's noted that some of the programming blocks are hosted by announcers from country sister station WQSB.

In March of 2009, the station acquired its first translator, from Alabama Christian Broadcasters. The translator, W242BU, was licensed to Blue Mountain and was transmitting from a site east of Hokes Bluff near Gadsden. Under Sand Mountain Broadcasting's ownership, they eventually were able to move it to Albertville. By October 2009, they were granted a permit to change it to 107.1 MHz (as W296BG) and transmit from the WAVU tower with 220 watts of power. A license to cover for this move was granted in January 2010. In April 2010 the station was granted a permit to move the translator to 107.5 MHz (as W298BG) with an increase in power to 250 watts. A license to cover for that change was filed in May 2010. It was around this time that the FM frequency was being worked into the marketing, as the station began being known as "Power 107.5".

The station was granted a permit for a new FM translator in February 2018, for a station on 92.5 MHz, transmitting from atop "Mount Sinai" near Steele. That permit expired, unbuilt, however.

Translator W298BG was granted a permit to move off the WAVU tower in Albertville to the WQSB tower east of Mountainboro with 250 watts in March 2024. A license to cover for that change was filed in early April 2024.