Technical Profile: WVOK-FM

FM Technical Profile: WVOK

Station Name:: K 98
Frequency:: 97.9
Format:: Hot Adult Contemporary
Transmitter Location:: [map] Atop Coldwater Mountain west of Hobson City, on Coldwater Mountain Road, north off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
Power (ERP):: 2.2 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 1,082 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
Owner:: Woodard Broadcasting
History:: Prior to this facility signing on the air in Oxford, the allocation had actually belonged to Birmingham. There, Courier Broadcasting, owners of then-WKAX 900 kHz, had a permit to put WKAX-FM on at 97.9 MHz in 1950. It appears that it never came to fruition, however.

The frequency remained dormant in central Alabama until Woodard Broadcasting, owners of then-WOXR 1580 kHz in Oxford, were granted a permit for a new station in 1989 for a Class A signal on 97.9 MHz broadcasting atop Coldwater Mountain. It was originally authorized 310 watts at 1,082 feet HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain), but when the license to cover was filed in August 1991, it was running 280 watts. From the beginning the transmitter has been atop a mountain overlooking Anniston, near Hobson City. The original call sign was WKFN, and it had an Adult Contemporary music format. In the Spring of 1992, the station snatched up the legendary (for the Birmingham area, anyway) call letters WVOK that had been dropped from AM 690 in Birmingham. The branding at this time was "K-98".

Around the year 2000, the station moved towards the Hot Adult Contemporary format and later branded itself as "97.9 WVOK". The station at one time simulcast the AM's Oldies format on weekends. In the winter of 2001, the station was able to bump up the coverage a little by receiving a permit for 510 watts from 1,108 feet.

In August 2022, the station was granted a permit to increase power to 2.2 kW from the existing transmission site, with a decrease of antenna HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain) from 1,112 feet to 1,082 feet. As part of the change, the station will re-license from Oxford to Ohatchee, in the far northwestern corner of Calhoun County.

A license to cover for that change was filed in late August 2024.