Technical Profile: WTXK

AM Technical Profile: WTXK

Frequency:: 1210
Format:: Sports talk
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [goKML aerial] Between Woodley Road (CR-39) and US-231/82 in the far southeast corner of Montgomery, on Macedona Drive, east of Guy Court.
Power (ERP):: Day: 10 kW; Critical hours: 5 kW; Night: 30 watts
Antenna:: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCData.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Studio] Google Street View of the station's studios in Montgomery.
[Audio] Top of the hour ID audio, recorded 9 March 2021. M4A format. 131 kb, 14 seconds.
// W298BC Montgomery
:
PS-THE TICKET WTXK AM 1210 FM 107.5 | (show title) IS ON ESPN...
Time-[?]
Text-THE TICKET WTXK AM 1210 FM 107.5
PTY-[None]
PI-[?]; Owned by Frontdoor Broadcasting
// W298BC Montgomery
History:: Wade B. Sullivan received a construction permit for a new AM station, licensed to Ozark, in 1967. When it signed on in 1968, the station was on 1190 kW, with a CCA AM-1000D transmitter, running 1 kW daytime-only. The calls were WAYD, after the owner's first name. At the start, the station ran a Country music format. The transmitter and studio were located at the corner of AL-53 (now US-231) and Sam Lisenby Road, a few miles northwest of downtown Ozark.

The station spawned an FM companion with WAYD-FM on 103.9 MHz, in 1974.

In 1983, the station was purchased by MSB Communications, who flipped the format from Country to Religious programming. Under their ownership, the station received a permit to increase power to 10 kW days, while moving up a notch on the dial to 1200 kHz. That facility went on the air around 1987. The calls changed to WFSF in December, 1988. A year later it was shown that the station was owned by Wesley R. Morgan. He, in turn, sold the stations to Sunrise Broadcasting, in 1990.

The calls changed to WQLS in 1993 to match their FM sister station, and it appears around this time the station flipped to a News/Talk format. Two years later in 1995, the station moved up the dial again one notch to 1210 kHz, which allowed it to run 10 kW days with about 35 watts of nighttime power. The station was purchased by Woods Communications Group, Inc., in 1996.

This stations were sold to Jimmy Jarrell, Inc. in 2000 for $12,000. He, in turn, spun the stations off to Styles Broadcasting of Dothan for $750,000 in 2002. Styles later became Dothan's Magic Broadcasting. The station dropped the news/talk format for Gospel in 2006 or 2007, as "The Light". A year later in 2008, a fire at the transmitter took the station off the air; they quickly returned with a Special Temporary Authority to operate at 1 kW days and 3 watts night.; In December 2009 the station received a construction permit to relocate to the Montgomery area, with the same authorized power/setup as the current Ozark license. The city of license changed to Pike Road, which was only incorporated in the late 90's. The station was also sold once again, this time to Montgomery-area based Stroh Communications, who owns a religious-formatted FM in the region.

As of February 2010, the station was reported to be airing a Classic Country music format. The station was also reported to be airing on FM translator W298BC at 107.5 MHz in Montgomery. In early March 2010 it was reported that the station dropped country for Sports Talk as "The Ticket" and shortly thereafter ditched the WQLS calls for the more appropriate WTXK. Although still branded as The Ticket, the station picked up Yahoo! Sports Radio in the summer of 2011. After the new year's debut of CBS Sports in 2013, WTXK dropped Yahoo! Sports for ESPN after WMSP took CBS Sports affiliation.

The station received a permit for a second FM translator in 2018, but it expired unbuilt in January 2021.