Technical Profile: WTKE

AM Technical Profile: WTKE

Frequency:: 1490
Format:: Sports Talk
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] Just south of the intersection of Berryhill Road (SR-184A) and Hamilton Bridge Road in the city of Milton.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW
Antenna:: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

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// W246BN Pensacola, FL
// WTKE-FM HD2 Niceville, FL
// W232CF Fort Walton Beach, FL
// WTKP Port St. Joe, FL

Owned by Omni WTKE AM, LLC
History:: This station was originally WSRA (for Santa RosA county) back in the 1958. It was put on the air by Santa Rosa Broadcasting Company and ran 250 watts full time. The station upgraded to 1 kW days and 250 watts nights, and was an affiliate of the Keystone network, by the mid-60's. The station was owned by Radio Milton by the early 70's and had a MOR (Middle-of-the-Road) music format.

Millard F. Adams acquired the station in 1974, and changed the calls to WCKC. They kept the MOR and added some Country music for good measure. Richard A. Taylor acquired the station in 1982 and added some Religious programming, then went all-country by the start of 1985. Sims Enterprises got the station in 1988, and kept the country music but also got the station a full time 1,000 watts. They sold the station to Faith Broadcasting in 1990 for $75,000. They flipped it to a full time Religious format.

The station was sold again, this time to Worldlink Technologies Group, Inc. for $90,000, in 2003. They flipped the station from religious programming to Adult Standards and Oldies as "Memories 1490".

The station was sold yet again, in December 2005, to… and I'm not making this up… Baroness Maxine Ann Agasim-Pereira of Fulwood. Yes, she's an actual Baroness. The purchase price was a slightly curious $220,000. The Baroness is doing business as Camax Communication Group. FCCdata lists this as "Professional Humor, Inc.", although I can't find reference to that name (or a comedy radio format) anywhere.; In late March 2009 it was reported that this station dropped its standards format to become the area's first full time Spanish language outlet, as "Radio La Picante". That didn't last, and the station became a repeater of sports talker WTKE-FM (Fort Walton Beach area) in August of 2010. In July 2012 the station filed a Silent STA (Special Temporary Authority) due to financial hardship and equipment failure. The station has remained off air since then, except minimal periods required to keep the license active. The station was last reported on air with the Fox Sports Radio network in August 2014, which appears to be permanent. Although it still shares a call sign with Fort Walton Beach's WTKE-FM, the stations are no longer co-owned and carry different sports programming from one another. The station filed another STA to be silent in January 2018, citing loss of program service.

In late March 2018, the station resumed operations with The Ticket Sports Network programming, feeding a localized version of the format to the translator W246BN in Pensacola.

The station filed a Silent STA in August 2019 due to loss of programming source. The translator continued to operate during this time with the regular Sports Talk programming, by switching primary affiliation to the WTKE-FM station in Niceville, Florida.

The station filed a Resumption of Operations notice in July 2020.

The station filed yet another Silent STA in October 2021, again citing loss of programming source.

In May 2022, this station split from WTKE-FM in Fort Walton Beach when that station came under new ownership and flipped to Classic Rock. A Resumption of Operations notice would not be filed until August 2022, after filing several extensions to remain off the air. Two weeks after that filing, Omni Broadcasting, LLC filed to acquire the station from Camax for $40,000.