FM Technical Profile: WTGZ

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Station Name:
Tiger 95.9
Frequency:
95.9
Format:
Alternative Rock
Transmitter Location:
[map] [street view] Inside the Talladega National Forest, just north of the intersection of US-80, US-29 and AL-186, southeast of I-85 exit 42.
Power (ERP):
4.3 kW
Antenna:
Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:
377 feet
Other Information:
60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
More Information:
[FCC]
[FCCdata]
[Radio-Locator]
[Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
Owner:
Tiger Communications
History:
This station was spawned in the summer of 1975 by New South Broadcasting, owners of Tuskegee's 580 WBIL.   The calls may have originally been WVNS.  Early on the format was a mix of "black progressive" and jazz music.  The calls changed to WBIL-FM (We Believe In Love) in November 1978 and for much of the 80's, the station simulcast all or in part the AM, which had a full service black-oriented format and later did urban contemporary in the mid-90's.  
Tiger Communications bought the station $450,000 in 1996 and flipped the station to alternative and modern rock as "Tiger 95.9", accompanied by a change in the calls to WTGZ.  Sometime after the flip to modern rock, the station took the unusual move (at least in Alabama) of getting a deal to be heard in nearby Montgomery via a translator, W285AJ on 104.9 MHz. 
The station lost its translator in Montgomery in November of 2009 to that city's AM 1170 WACV, which debuted an oldies format after its news/talk programming migrated to a new FM signal.  On 12 July 2010, WTGZ's alt-rock format and calls swapped places with the classic country on 94.9 WQSI, bringing the classic country to a better signal for Auburn and Opelika while (sort of) helping out Tiger's rock in the Montgomery area. 
Auburn didn't really take to the classic country format, and in the summer of 2014 the music gave way to a conservative news/talk format.

In May 2020 the station swapped formats and calls with 93.9, bringing the Alternative Rock and WTGZ calls back to this frequency.