Technical Profile: WKXM-FM

FM Technical Profile: WKXM

Station Name:: Gold 97
Frequency:: 97.7
Format:: Oldies
Transmitter Location:: [map] On the northwest side of Dickson Road, north of AL-44 and the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, west of Brilliant.
Power (ERP):: 3.9 kW
Antenna:: Directional
Antenna HAAT:: 404 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

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PS-[?]
Time-[?]
Text-[?]
PTY-[?]
PI-WKXM-FM
More Information:: [FCC]; [RECnet]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Studio] Street View imagery of the station's studio on Fairview Road in Winfield.
Owner:: Our Town Radio, Inc.
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit applied for by James Boyd Pate, owner of Winfield's country-formatted WKXM AM 1300. Filed in March 1990, the original application was for a Class A signal with 3 kW at 328 feet Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT) on 105.9 MHz from a site right on the town limit of Glen Allen, off Alabama Highway 129. That permit was dismissed and replaced in February 1991 with another one for 2.5 kW from 410 feet HAAT from a site about seven miles north of Winfield on Dickinson Road, north of Alabama Highway 44. While waiting on the grant, the station and its AM sister were sold to Harper-Mainord Broadcasting (Jack and Melba Mainord and Maxine Harper) for $365,000 in December of 1991. The permit was granted in 1992, with a license to cover for it filed in May 1992. At sign on, the station was using an ABC satellite fed network Oldies format, as "Gold 106". It appears the station was originally assigned the WXDX calls before being changed to the current WKXM-FM call sign before signing on.

In the mid-90's a transfer of control was initiated that saw the company name change to Ad-Media Management Corporation.

The station was granted a permit to move to 97.7 MHz in March of 2004 as part of a big switch-a-roo with other north and central Alabama stations, with the benefits of those moves going to a few stations in the Birmingham market to the south. As part of the frequency swap, the station was able to boost power slightly to 3.9 kW at 404 feet HAAT while using a directional antenna. A license to cover for that change was filed in November 2004. The station was then marketed as "Gold 97.7".

In January 2024, Our Town Radio, Inc. (Robby McAlpine), owners of WCRL in Oneonta, filed to acquire the station from Ad-Media Management Corp. for $14,000. As part of the deal, a related company called Vertical Holding, LLC acquired the real estate assets out of foreclosure. The FCC approved the license transfer in early March 2024.