Technical Profile: WQCR

AM Technical Profile: WQCR

Frequency:: 1500
Format:: Regional Mexican
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] Just east of intersection of Shelby Co. 24 and Camp Branch Road, east of Alabaster.
Power (ERP):: Day: 2.3 kW; Critical Hours: 1.2 kW; Night: 3 watts
Antenna:: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

[FCC]
[FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]

[Facebook]; [Bhamwiki] Information on the station from the WQMS era

Owned by Riviera Communications, LLC
History:: This station appears to have come on the air in 1981 as WQMS, a 1 kW daytime only operator on 1500 kW, licensed to Alabaster and owned by MetroSouth Broadcasting, Inc. The studios and transmitter site were located off Industrial Drive in Alabaster. According to the Broadcasting Yearbook the station had a satellite fed Middle-of-the-Road (MOR) or easy Adult Contemporary format in the early times. The owner at the time once commented that there was no sense in hiring live announcers, because his big city competitors (WSGN, WERC, WAPI) would get them instead. The call sign changed to WGTT on 1 December 1984. A line of formats followed: first was Country as "Great Country", then Oldies as "Great Oldies", then Southern Gospel as — you guessed it — "Great Gospel", then they circled back around to Oldies. In 1988, the station was acquired by Fanning Broadcasting and honestly it's unclear where in the wheel of formats that this acquisition happened. By the early 90's, however, the station was back to doing "Great Gospel" with music, sermons and live & local announcers.

Ownership was passed to WGTT, Inc. in 1992 for $17,500.

The call sign changed to WQCR (Quality Christian Radio) in December 2000; around this time the format was more broadly Religious in nature and not just gospel. In February 2001 the station received a permit to relocate to a site east of Alabaster near the Longview Mine area off Shelby County Road 26. When the license to cover was filed in March of 2003, the station was broadcasting with 2.3 kW days, 1.2 kW during critical hours and now had a 3 watt nighttime service authorized.

The station flipped to a Regional Mexican Spanish language format in September 2002 as "Radio Alegria". In 2009 it would become part of the "La 10 Q" network of AMs across North Alabama, simulcasting at one point on Lexington's WJHX and WZGX in Bessemer, two stations owned in part by Bar Broadcasting.

This station dropped out of the "La 10 Q" trimulcast in the fall of 2012, moving to a type of Spanish Variety Hits as "Juan". By June 2015 the station was noted to be off the air for a short time. In April 2017 it was noted that the "Juan" format given way to a simulcast of the "El Jefe" Regional Mexican format of Birmingham's 1220 WAYE.