Technical Profile: WKSJ

FM Technical Profile: WKSJ

Station Name:: 95 KSJ
Frequency:: 94.9
Format:: Contemporary Country
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] Middle Baldwin County with all the other big market FM and TV stations, at the Ard Road tower just south of I-10, exit 53. Co-located with WEAR-DT, WHBR-DT and WFGX-DT; FM stations WJTQ, WDLT and WBLX.
Power (ERP):: 99 kW. (100 kW ERP with beam tilt)
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 1555 feet.
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; — Increased power: 1.5%
HD-PTY: Country; :
PS-Today's Best Country 95 KSJ
Time-Present
Text-95 KSJ Today's Best Country
Text-95 KSJ Song Title - Artist
PTY-Country
TMC-Metro Traffic
PI-KDAB-FM; Radiotext+ Song Title/Artist-Yes
Radiotext+ Station Short Name-95 KSJ
Radiotext+ Station Long Name-Today's Best Country 95 KSJ; AUX: 60 kW @ 1493 feet. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC. (CP)
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Picture] Image of the RDS text display on a Sony Bluetooth portable headset, showing the Radio Text field scrolling by.
[Picture] Image of the RDS text display from a Mazda sedan's radio, showing the PS (station name), PTY (format) and Radio Text fields.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD display for the HD-1 channel.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD display for the HD-2 channel, carrying the Gulf Coast's Smooth Jazz Channel broadcast.
[Picture] Image from a Mazda sedan's radio, showing the HD PAD display for the HD-1 channel.
[Picture] Image from a Mazda sedan's radio, showing the HD PAD display for the HD-2 channel.
[Picture] Image from a Toyota's HD radio, showing the HD PAD data for the HD-1 channel, including the station's logo graphic.
[Picture] Image from a Toyota's HD radio, showing the HD PAD data for the HD-1 channel, including an artist's photograph accompanying his song.
[Picture] Image from a Toyota's HD radio, showing the HD PAD data for the HD-2 channel, including the station's logo graphic.
[Picture] Image from a Toyota's HD radio, showing the HD PAD data for the HD-2 channel, including the artist's photograph accompanying his song.
Owner:: iHeartMedia
History:: Duke Broadcasting Company, who ran Prichard-licensed country AM WZAM, filed for an FM counterpart in the spring of 1969. The original construction permit was granted in 1970, with 30.7 kW ERP fed into a 12-bay Gates antenna, driven by a Gates FM5C transmitter. The antenna was apparently mounted on the AM's stick off Williams Street in Prichard at a HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain) of 134 feet. The studios were located at 815 Craft Highway in Prichard. When the station signed on in the late summer of 1971, it was running a Beautiful Music format with the WZAM-FM call sign. Just over a year later, Duke sold the station to Capitol Broadcasting Corporation (E. M. Johnson). He flipped both stations to a Country music format as WKSJ and WKSJ-FM, for the initials of another Capitol member, Kenneth S. Johnson.

Capitol sought an increase to 100 kW in 1973, with an increased antenna height of 410 feet. A year later, the studios moved to 3943 Airport Boulevard in Mobile.

The station applied to move the transmitter to Spanish Fort in 1981, with 100 kW from over 1,100 feet, but it's unclear if that was ever built-out or not. Instead, the station moved to the 1,800 foot-tall WPMI-TV tower in central Baldwin County in 1993, re-licensing from Prichard to Mobile in the process. A year prior to that move, the station was sold to Franklin Communication Partners, which started off a succession of name changes (including WAVH-FM, Inc. and Pourtales Radio Partnership) that eventually morphed into Clear Channel Communications. Who is now iHeart.

The station's tower, which held WPMI-TV, WHBR-TV, WJLQ-FM, WBLX-FM and WYOK-FM fell during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. A new tower was built nearby to re-house many of these stations a few years later.

After the flip to Country in the 70's, the station has been at or near the top of the Arbitron ratings consistently, and #1 more times than any other station.

This is Mobile's most powerful HD multicast station. The HD2 was originally Classic Country "Foggy Mountain", but it was replaced with Smooth Jazz in mid-July 2015. That new "Gulf Coast's Smooth Jazz" later began being heard on Mobile translator W262BL after it was moved into the city from Spanish Fort. The translator later broke away to be paired up with iHeart's WMXC-HD2, feeding a Urban Contemporary format to the translator, leaving the Smooth Jazz on WKSJ-HD2 and Pensacola's WRGV-HD2 as an HD-only simulcast.

In late July 2022, it was observed that the "Gulf Coast's Smooth Jazz" HD2 subchannel here and on WRGV in Pensacola had been removed as part of a corporate decision.