Technical Profile: WLXA

FM Technical Profile: WLXA

Station Name:: Power 97 WLX
Frequency:: 98.3
Format:: Country
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] South of East 2nd Street (AL-184) and east of Cox Boulevard in Sheffield, just south of Johnson Street. Co-located with the W278CH translator.
Power (ERP):: 25 kW
Antenna:: Nondirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 240 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :

PS-WLX 98.3
Time-[?]
Text-97.5 / 98.3 WLX Country Hits & Legends (song/artist)
PTY-Country
PI-KDXC-FM
More Information:: [FCC]
[FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]

[Image] RDS data display from an AT&T Insite cell phone's FM receiver, showing the PS (station name), Radio Text and PTY (format) fields, from May 2019.
[Image] RDS data display from an AT&T Insite cell phone's FM receiver, showing the data as transmitted over translator W278CH in Muscle Shoals, from May 2019.
[Video] Demonstration of an AT&T Insite phone's FM receiver automatically switching between WLXA and its Florence-area translator via the AF (auto frequency) function.

// WWLX Lawrenceburg, TN
// W287AA Lawrenceburg, TN
// WLLX Lawrenceburg, TN
// W278CH Killen, AL
Owner:: Radio 7 Media, LLC.
History:: This station dates back to January, 1971, when it was put on the air by SBG Enterprises in Pulaski, Tennessee. The calls were WMGL and the format in the mid-70's was a mix of country and MOR (middle of the road) music. A company called Medium Rare, Inc. bought the station in 1978; by the early 80's it was all-country all the time. The station was acquired by Pulaski Broadcasting at the start of 1984. Pulaski owned the town's other station, AM 1420 WKSR; they took its country format and put it here and moved the AM to adult contemporary shortly after buying the station. The call sign changed to WINJ in 1986. Interestingly, by the mid-90's the formats had flipped — the AM was country, the FM was adult contemporary. When the FM took the country format, it also took the AM's calls and became WKSR-FM.; The station moved from Giles County to Lawrence County in 2007, re-licensing to the town of Loretto in the process. In 2014, the country music and WKSR-FM calls swapped places with WDXE-FM in Lawrenceburg, which was on 106.7 MHz and had an adult contemporary format. The station became "Mix 98.3" once it took on the adult contemporary format.

The format changed to classic hits in May 2015, when it began simulcasting an AM/translator combo out of Lawrenceville known as "105.3 The X". Radio 7 Media, LLC acquired the station in August of that year.

Of note is that this station once ran an on-channel booster in the town of Pulaski, presumably due to terrain blocking the signal from the transmitter site. Also, this station broadcast in HD from 2007 onwards for several years. The HD-2 was a simulcast of WKSR AM out of Pulaski, with its oldies format. It was rare (and still is) for small town stations to embrace the technology. Due to low listener levels, the HD broadcasts were eventually abandoned.

The station's call sign changed to WLXA in late January 2016. A few months later in April, the station received a construction permit to relocate the transmitter site south of the Alabama state line, in a move that would better serve the Shoals area. Oddly, this is not the first attempt to move the station towards the Shoals. In 2004 the station had a permit to re-license to Killen and serve the shoals with 25 kW, but it was never built out.

Shortly after the latest permit was issued, any mention of the "105.3 the X" branding was changed, and the format began to be heard on WTNX at 106.7 in Lawrenceburg, with the branding "X106". In late January, the Wikipedia entry for this station was changed to show it was being simulcast with 97.5 WLLX in Lawrenceburg, and its country format, but the actual change was slow to happen. It wasn't until Memorial Day 2016 that the format actually changed; both WLXA and WWLX AM in Lawrenceburg joined the simulcast of WLLX's "Power 97" country format. Later in June 2016 the station began broadcasting from its site south of the Alabama state line. Four months later, in October, Radio 7 Media applied to move the station once again, this time to a site right in Muscle Shoals.

The proposed move to Florence would have necessitated the relocation of two LPFM stations, WALW-LP in Moulton, Alabama, and WYZK-LP in Hartselle, Alabama. It would have the station relocated to a recently-constructed communications tower just south of AL-184 and west of US-72 in Sheffield, and would have the station re-licensed to Florence from Loretto, Tennessee.

During the application process, an objection was filed by Big River Broadcasting, stating the move was not in the interest of listeners in Loretto, who would be losing their only local FM signal. Radio7Media rebutted that there were numerous other AM and FM signals available over the air, but the FCC in 2022 ruled against them. In May of 2023, they updated the application and abandoned plans to relocate to Florence. Instead, they proposed merely raising power while lowing antenna height, which would result in a negligible increase in coverage for the station. It would also remain licensed to Loretto, Tennessee and continue to serve the town with a 60 dBu contour signal or better.

The station filed a license to cover for that construction permit in mid-December 2023.

In early February 2024 the station filed another application seeking to move and re-license to Florence, this time with 25 kW from a site between Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. That application was granted that same month. A permit for translator W278CH was also granted that same month; it included a move out of Muscle Shoals to Killen, northeast of the city, with 250 watts vertical only and a directional antenna pointed back towards the Shoals. A license to cover for the FM's permit was granted in September 2024, while the translator's license to cover was filed in early November 2024. Interestingly, the license to cover for the translator was withdrawn the same day it was filed, with the owner citing that they were exploring “alternative uses” for the translator.