:PS-Coast 102
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Text-COAST102
PTY-Adult Hits
PI-WGCM-FM
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[Picture] Picture of a bumper sticker from the station's days as rocker "TK 102".
[Image] Image of the RDS data on an Insignia HD portable, showing the PI (call sign) and Radio Text fields.
[Image] Image of the RDS data on a Radio Shack DX-398 portable, showing the PS (station name) field.
In 1967, E. O. Roden and first applied for a new FM signal on 102.3 MHz, licensed to Gulfport. The station, once granted, was authorized 3 kW ERP from a 290 foot broadcast tower located at the studio site, 2200 15th Avenue in Gulfport. (Today, the concrete pad where the studio once stood is still visible, and the tower has been repurposed for two-way and cellular communications antennas.) The station came on the air in the summer of 1970 as WTAM, companion to WGCM on the AM dial. It's not known what the format was for the first few years, but by the early 70's it was the market's only black-oriented station. In the mid-80's, the black format migrated to the AM side and the FM flipped to country. In 1987 the station was sold to Holt Communications, Corp. and they dropped the black programming completely and simulcast the AM and FM with the country music format.
Under Holt's ownership, the station flipped to a rock format in 1988, with the WTKI calls, as "TK 102". This matched Holt's other rock property in Pensacola, which was WTKX "TK 101". (The WTKI calls eventually wound up on another rock station, this time in Huntsville, Alabama.)
The station was sold again in 1989, to EJM Broadcasting. They flipped the AM from country to nostalgia, and the FM from rock to oldies. They also put the original WGCM calls back on the AM, and brought them to this FM station in January of 1990. From this point forward, the station's been oldies or classic hits, always as "Coast 102".
In January 2022 it was announced the Biloxi/Gulfport Dowdy and Dowdy stations were being sold to JLE, Inc., for $3.25 million. JLE, Inc. is owned by John Dowdy's two daughters.