FM Technical Profile: WAJH
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- Station Name:
- -
- Frequency:
- 91.1
- Format:
- Smooth Jazz
- Transmitter
Location:
- [map]
[street
view] [bing
streetside] East of US 31 on Shades Crest behind the Vestavia
Hills Baptist church.
- Power (ERP):
- 400 watts,
vertical only
- Antenna:
- Nondirectional
- Antenna HAAT:
- 420 feet
- Other
Information:
- 60 dBu protected
contour
map, from the FCC.
:
PS-Jazz Hall Of Fame Radio jazzhall.com
Time-[?]
Text-Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
PTY-Jazz
PI-
- More
Information:
- [FCC]
- [FCCdata]
- [Radio-Locator]
- [Wikipedia]
[Website] For the Alabama Jazz
Hall of Fame
[Image]
RDS display data as shown on a Mazda OEM stereo, from 2020.
- Owner:
- Alabama Jazz
Hall of Fame
- History:
- This station came on the
air in April of 1967 as WVSU (Voice
of Samford University),
a 10 watt school station broadcasting from the university's
campus. The format was most likely a typically diverse college
format, but in the late 70's it did a stint with contemporary
Christian music. The station got an upgrade to 125 watts in
1984, still broadcasting from the campus. After the upgrade the
station returned to a more typical college format, with jazz,
Christian rock, free-form and alternative rock with a rotating staff
of student disc jockeys. The station never had great coverage
due to the campus' location in a valley, with Red Mountain and Shades
Crest blocking much of the signal from Birmingham and the southern
suburbs. It was also limited by a co-channel college station
(WJSR) broadcasting from the Center Point part of town.
- Thanks to some creative
engineering, the station was able to upgrade to a 500 watt signal,
broadcasting from behind a local church in Vestavia Hills atop Shades
Crest. Both WVSU and WJSR employed directional antennas at this
time, pointing away from one-another. This greatly improved
WVSU's signal in downtown and the southern suburbs, with good
reception as far south as Pelham possible.
- WJSR left the airwaves in
the spring of 2014 after Jefferson State Community College
discontinued their broadcasting courses. After the license for
that station was turned in, Samford was able to drop the aggressively
directional antenna that used to protect WJSR; they shortly received a
permit to go completely non-directional, but at a slightly reduced
power of 400 watts. That permit was finally put on the air in
September 2017, nearly three years to the day after it was first
issued.
It was announced in late February 2017 that Sanford University agreed
to sell the station to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame for
$50,000. The call letters were scheduled to change to WAJH (Alabama Jazz
Hall of Fame) after
the sale was consummated.