FM Technical Profile: WJRL

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Station Name:

Rock 100.5

Frequency:

100.5

Format:

Rock

Transmitter Location:

[map] [street view] About a half mile west of the intersection of Ross Clark Circle with South Oates Street (US-231), behind the Hyundai car dealer.

Power (ERP):

10 kW

Antenna:

Nondirectional

Antenna HAAT:

434 feet

Other Information:

60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

:

PS-[?]
Time-[?]
Text-ROCK OF DOTHAN 100.5 SQUIRREL MORNINGS ROCK ALL DAY 
PTY-Rock
PI-WJRL-FM

More Information:

[FCC]

[FCCdata]

[Radio-Locator]

[Wikipedia]

[Facebook]

Owner:

Kensington Digital Media

History:

This station dates back to an original construction permit granted to Sky Way Broadcasting, Ltd. for a new Class A station on 100.5 MHz, licensed to Fort Rucker. When it signed on in late 1991 as WXUS, the transmitter was located just south of Newton near the intersection of Hartford Street and College Street.    In 1993, the station filed a license to cover for a change to 2.8 kW of power but at a higher antenna height from the same tower in Newton.  The Broadcasting Yearbook lists the format as Progressive Country in 1994.  By the late 90's, however, it had again changed formats, this time to Oldies/Classic Hits as "Star 100.5".

Sky Way Broadcasting sold their stations to Styles Media Group LLC in October 2003 for $750,000.  The call letters changed to WLDA in March 2005 and it's likely at this point the station had flipped to a Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) format.  In August 2005 the were granted a permit to increase power to 25 kW and relocate the transmit site to a location near the Tabernacle community west of Dothan, south of AL-52 (Hartford Highway). This permit would also see the station re-licensed to the town of Slocomb.  In March 2008 that permit was modified to move the tower to a site off Southgate Road south of Ross Clark Circle in Dothan, co-located with WVOB. A license to cover for that change was filed in August 2008.

By 2007, the format was listed in the Broadcasting Yearbook as being ESPN Sports, but this seems to have only lasted a short time before flipping again to Adult Contemporary as "The Breeze".  By this point, Styles Media had been absorbed into Magic Broadcasting.

In the fall of 2011, the station was sold to Alabama Media as part of a more complicated deal involving Gulf South Media.  Members of the Holladay family are involved in both Gulf South and Alabama Media; Robert Holladay runs Alabama Media (along with The Radio People) while his brother Clay runs Gulf South (along with New South Radio).  After the acquisition, the station flipped to an Urban Contemporary format as "100.5 The Beat". 

Around the third week of January 2013, the station flipped to a Rock format as "Rock 100.5" while also picking up the WJRL call letters.  In September 2014, the station received a construction permit to drop its directional antenna and relocate to a common tower shared with other Alabama Media stations, just off Ross Clark Circle.  That facility was put on the air in the fall of 2016.

In mid-February 2024, Robert Holladay's Alabama Media announced the sale of this and other co-owned stations to Tony Richards Didier's Kensington Media Alabama for $1.25 million. The FCC approved the license transfer in October 2024.