Technical Profile: WJBE-FM

FM Technical Profile: WJBE

Station Name:: Country Legends
Frequency:: 88.5
Format:: Classic Country
Transmitter Location:: Licensed: [map] [street view] In Curry, just north of CR-43 (Smith Lake Dam Road), east of AL-257 (Curry Highway) a few blocks. On a cell phone tower behind the storage sheds.
Actual: [map] [street view] In Curry, on the water tower at the intersection of AL-257 (Curry Highway) and Tower Loop. (CP)
Power (ERP):: 500 watts vertical only
1.6 kW vertical only (CP)
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 200 feet
200 feet (CP)
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]

[Studio] Google Street View of the station's studio, co-located with AM 1240 WJLX on AL-5 in Jasper.

[Facebook] For the defunct "The Planet" modern rock format.
[Facebook] For the current "Country Legends" classic country format.
Owner:: Walker County Broadcasting, as Big South Community Broadcasting
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit issued to Big South Community Broadcasting, Inc for a new noncommercial station licensed to the community of Five Points, north of Jasper in Walker County. The permit, which was granted in December of 2007 was for 500 watts vertical only, on 88.5 MHz, with an antenna height above average terrain (HAAT) of 200 feet. The station was reported on air in the spring of 2008, and filed a license to cover in June of that year. While the application hinted towards a Christian format of some type, complete with proposed schedules of religious programming, it instead was reported to be airing a Classic Country format.

The station was granted a permit to increase power to 3.9 kW (still vertical-only polarization) in April 2009, at the same site and at the same antenna height. This permit would expire unbuilt.

In January 2011 the station announced a format flip was coming, and on Valentine's Day 2011 they dropped the Classic Country for Modern Rock as "The Planet".

The station was reported silent as of 2 July 2012 for an unknown period of time. By early 2014 the station dropped the Modern Rock format and returned to Classic Country as "Country Legends 88.5". The station filed a Silent STA in April 2014 citing transmitter audio issues. The station presumably returned to the air in September after filing a resumption of operations notice with the FCC.

The station was granted a construction permit to increase power to 1.6 kW in January 2021. Around this time it was noted that the station, despite being a noncommercial operation, appears to be running full blown commercial advertising, which is a violation of FCC rules.

The previous construction permit expired unbuilt in January 2024; one month later they filed another application, with the same technical parameters as the previous one. Of interest is that the licensed site, a cell phone tower just up the road from the Curry Volunteer Fire Department, does not appear to have any FM antennas on it in any of the available Google Street Views for that area. Instead, it appears that the single-bay vertically polarized FM antenna has been actually located on the nearby Curry water tower at Tower Loop and Curry Highway since at least 2008, which is the oldest Google Street View available at that site.

One of the principals of Big South Community Broadcasting, Brett Elmore, died suddenly of a heart attack in October 2024. He had gained notoriety earlier in the year when WJLX in Jasper, a station he ran, had its tower mysteriously disappear under suspicious circumstances.