AM History Profile: WRWJ

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History:

Roland Jordan, Jr. (as Central Alabama Broadcasting Company) put this station on the air in the spring of 1956 as WRWJ, a 1 kW daytime only broadcast on 1570 kHz. The transmitter used was a Western Electric 443-A1, broadcasting from a site 760 feet south of the west end of 10th Avenue in Selma, west of what is today Valley Creek Circle, north of US-80.  The studios were at the Hotel Albert at 222 Broad Street. 

The studios moved to 729 Dallas Avenue in 1961; in 1963 the station boosted power to 5 kW.  Ownership was sold to Kathleen E. Stutts in August 1966.  A few months later the call sign changed to WTQX and the format became Top 40 as "Twixie".

Twixie's pop music format gave way to an Urban Adult Contemporary (R&B/Soul) format with some Gospel mixed in for added flavor in late 1972. The studios moved to 420 Broad Street around that time, too.  Bob Carl Bailey purchased the station in 1979. 

Over the following years, the format remained mostly the same, although it appears to have diversified somewhat into Jazz and other niche genres.  The station went dark in 1996 and the license was cancelled that year.

[aircheck] Birmingham Rewound hosts a 5 minute, 20 second aircheck of the station during its WTQX days. It features commercials, announcements and news by Dave Paxton.  This file is in MP3 format and is 1.8 MB.

[tower] The station's old tower is still standing, just off US-80 in Selma.