Technical Profile: WJNZ

AM Technical Profile: WJNZ

Frequency:: 1000
Format:: Talk, News
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] East of Alabama 59 just south of downtown Robertsdale, off Fairground Road.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW
Antenna:: Day: 1 tower, omnidirectional
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]; [Facebook]

[Image] Picture of the broadcast tower, across from Robertsdale High School, at sunrise. From October 2017.
[Image] Picture of the studio building for the station, on the Grace Fellowship Church property. From October 2017.
[Image] Picture of a sign mounted on the former studio building at the transmitter site, showing "The Light". From July 2023.; [Aircheck] A sample of liners and commercials from one of the station's first days back on air as WDXZ with the gospel format. 7'14", 8.4 MB. (08-20-2013)
[Audio] Top of the hour ID audio, recorded 9 March 2021. M4A format. 117 kb, 9 seconds.; Owned by Tri-City Radio Group, LLC

// WTOF Bay Minette, AL
Silent-ish
History:: This station began around 1985 as a country music outlet with the WXWY calls. The station later went through a phase of satellite fed "Music of Your Life" with the nickname "Uptown 1000". That didn't last long, as the station flipped to country as "Dixie 1000" with the WDXZ calls. In late summer 2002 the station again flipped formats and began simulcasting with WYDH Atmore and WBCA Bay Minette, which had an urban oldies format. It kept calling itself "Dixie" during this time, oddly enough. When WYDH went back to classic country, so did WDXZ. In April 2004 the station flipped again, this time to news and talk with the WNSI calls from one of its sister stations.; The station appears to have gradually shifted towards more sports programming since 2004 and at some point went all sports with Fox Sports Radio affiliation. In May 2010 the calls of both the AM and FM changed to WBZR and the station began using "The Buzz" as a nickname. The station is still simulcasting the FM's talk lineup, and also stays on the air 24 hours a day despite its daytime-only license.; On 13 March 2011 the station's talk format disappeared and was replaced with country music, while the website was changed to a countdown clock. On Monday 14 March the station officially debuted as "Kix Country 105.9 FM and 1000 AM". This leaves the area without an outlet for such talk shows as Leo Laporte, Dave Ramsey and Kim Komando. The Kix Country format lasted until late summer 2012, when lightning damage forced the station to go silent. While silent, it the and FM simulcast in Atmore were to be sold to 21st Century Broadcasting, owned by Norma Jean Lewis and Bryan Covey. During the silent period, they resurrected the WDXZ calls. The station finally returned to the air in mid-August 2013, with a contemporary Christian music format as "Gospel 1000". This operation appears to be under an LMA with Gulf Coast Broadcasting, as the deal with 21st Century Broadcasting may have never gone through.

The station changed formats to sports talk in the middle of November, 2014. The change comes as part of an agreement to sell the station to Noah Britt's Tri-City Radio, LLC. Tri-City currently owns WPMO in Moss Point, MS and formerly LMA'd WVGG Lucedale, MS. The programming is a mix of regional, CBS and NBC sports programming and shares some programming with sister station AM 1140 WNWF in the Fort Walton Beach market, which Britt acquired in February 2015 after a long LMA. Tri City applied to move the station to 1020 kHz and add nighttime power, but that application was dismissed in April 2016. The call letter changed to WJNZ on 1 July 2016 and it's likely at that time the station dropped out of the sports simulcast and picked up a news/talk format as "The Voice of Lower Alabama".

The station seems to have fallen silent in July 2018, reportedly due to copper theft. It did not return to the air until the spring of 2020, although they never filed any kind of Silent STA notifications with the FCC for the nearly-two years they were off the air. The station also appears to have only returned to the air for a short period of time, before going off again. As of late October 2020, however, the station appears to be back on the air with talk programming.

In September 2021, the FCC fined the station $3,000 for failure to renew license in a timely fashion. It was observed to be off the air in November 2021.

The station was noted to be back on the air with News/Talk programming in early 2023, however by the early summer of 2023, the station was on air with no programming, 24 hours a day. As of July 2023, it has been observed on the air continuously for several months. A trip to the transmitter site revealed a new sign on the transmitter building saying "WJNZ 1000 The Light", a moniker the station has never previously used.

In June 2024 it was noted that Bay Minette's WTOF was noted on air and airing talk programming with advertisements noting that it was simulcasting with this station, however at the time this was heard, this station was actually off the air. The next time this station was observed on the air, WTOF was not, so it's hard to say if this is meant to be a permanent simulcast or not.