Technical Profile: WBHM

FM Technical Profile: WBHM

Station Name:: -
Frequency:: 90.3
Format:: Public Radio: Classical, Jazz, NPR and PRI News, Talk.
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] Located on the WBRC-TV tower atop Red Mountain. From the Vulcan statue, it's the second tower to your west.
Power (ERP):: 32 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 1214 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :

PS-GIVE ONLINE: A SERVICE OF UAB WBHM-FM
Time-present
Text-WBHM
PTY-Public
PS-WBHM-FM; SCA: Alabama Radio Reading Service; HD-2: Public Radio, Podcasts
"The Hub 106.1"
// W291DC Birmingham

:

PS-WBHM
Time-present
Text-WBHM
PTY-Public
PS-?

More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]; [Bhamwiki]

[Facebook]; [Audio] 30th Anniversary interview and aircheck from the station's first year of broadcasting.
[Audio] Station identification for the "Alabama's Beautiful Music" HD3 subchannel format. 16 seconds, 116 kB M4A audio.

[Image] Coverage map of WBHM and WSGN (hosted on WBHM's website).

[Image] RDS display data as shown on a Mazda OEM stereo, from 2020.
[Image] RDS display from the station on a GMC Yukon's radio.
[Image] RDS display from an Insignia portable radio in northwest Alabama, showing the Radio Text and PI (call sign) fields, updated June 2017.
[Image] RDS display from a GM vehicle's radio showing the RDS PS (station slogan) field of the W291DC translator in Birmingham.
Owner:: University of Alabama at Birmingham
History:: The Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) applied for a new noncommercial station in Birmingham on 90.3 MHz in November of 1974. The original application was for 100 kW from an antenna Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT) of 735 feet, from the WBMG-TV 42 tower atop Red Mountain. The original studio location was in the Education Building on the UAB campus. Before the application was granted, Taft Broadcasting — owners of WBRC-TV 6 — filed an objection to the application over possible interference issues to their TV station. It appears that Taft's objections had some merit, as the Board of Trustees filed in 1976 to move to a different transmitter site and lower the Effective Radiated Power. It's worth noting that Taft had also objected to the application for the Huntsville Library's public radio station in that city, for the same reasons.

The updated application moved the transmitter location to its current site atop Red Mountain, with an antenna height of 892 feet HAAT. The power was lowered to 50 kW, fed by a Harris FM20-H3 transmitter. Ironically, this is the WBRC-TV tower, owned by the people who objected to the initial application! A license to cover for this operation was filed in November 1976; WLRH in Huntsville had beaten it to the airwaves by only a few months. The station debuted with a Subsidiary Communications Authorization (SCA) on 67 kHz, for a radio reading service for the blind.

The station was an early adopter of the Radio Data System (RDS) standard in the mid-90's, but wound up abandoning it due to issues with noise in the station's audio caused by the data.

In 2000, the station began being heard on 91.5 WSGN in Gadsden, as part of a deal Gadsden State Community College struck to keep their station on the air.

RDS was turned back on sometime in 2011, it appears. The station has carried the Alabama Radio Reading Service for years, but word on the street was the service was being cut in the fall of 2011 due to lack of support and budget restraints. As of 2016, it was still reportedly active. The station had planned to add HD digital in 2010 but that never materialized.

In 2012, the station began being heard on translator W284CA, licensed to Fort Payne, by way of WSGN in Gadsden. When WSGN's school owners sold the station to K-Love in 2018, WBHM was supposed to feed the translator directly. It appears, however, that this never happened, as records indicate the translator was actually rebroadcasting Huntsville's WLRH instead.

In other translator-related information, the station began being heard on W291DC in Birmingham in 2017. The translator was originally intended to relay Atlanta's Christian CHR WVFJ-FM, but that likely never materialized. The translator, which operates from atop Red Mountain, offers a directional signal to the southern suburbs to help fill in coverage in the mountainous terrain.

The station filed a digital notification stating they commenced broadcasting the HD hybrid digital system on 14 October 2024, with a digital carrier power of 1.28 kW, or approximately 4% of analog power. It was reported in late February 2025 that the station had an HD2 subchannel, which was just simulcasting the main program feed with about a 30 second delay.

On 12 August 2025 it was noted that the station had added a third HD subchannel, playing a Beautiful Music format with "Beautiful 1320" WENN liners. WENN is a commercial outlet, so it appeared that this unusual simulcast was different from the 1320 AM feed and didn't have any commercial content. A few days later it was reported that all the HD feeds were offline, most likely due to tower work being done on the WBRC TV tower, causing the station to switch to an auxiliary backup. At the start of September 2025 it was reported that the Beautiful Music HD3 format was being heard on WIEZ in Decatur and its FM translator. The simulcast with the stations in Decatur only lasted until 24 September, when they flipped to a different format. Later in September it was reported that the HD stopped simulcasting the main WBHM feed to instead launch a mix of PRX shows and podcasts as "The Hub 106.1", simulcasting on translator W291DC. At the end of October 2025, it was reported that the HD3 had disappeared; a message on the Alabama's Beautiful Music website mentioned the removal was "due to circumstances beyond our control" and that they were looking for another broadcast partner. An "official launch" date for the " 106.1 The Hub" format was reported as 14 November 2025.

In late February 2026, the station filed an application to move translator W291DC to 105.9 MHz, with 250 watts directional, but it was quickly superseded by a follow-up filing to remain on 106.1 MHz. Although the amended modification specified that the directional antenna would remain the same, it appears that FCC data shows that it will vary slightly but still be roughly directional to the south-southeast as it has been previously licensed. The antenna height and location will remain the same, as well. The amended application was granted in early March 2026.