Technical Profile: WRJX

AM Technical Profile: WRJX

Frequency:: 1230
Format:: Standards
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] On Industrial Bypass, just east of US-43, before Bridal Path Road.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW; Night: 1 kW
Antenna:: Day: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Studio] Street View imagery of the studios for WHOD, WBMH and WRJX.
Owned by Pine City Radio
// W296DX Jackson (CP cancelled)
Silent
History:: This station started out on 1290 in 1950 with the calls WPBB as a 1 kW daytimer. Then they changed to WTHG (for the owner, T. H. Gaillard). In 1963 the station was sold to Jackson Broadcasting, who spawned an FM sister station (WTHG-FM). A few years later, it became WHOD (Heart Of Dixie). In 1966, the station and its FM sister were sold to Rowdy McGee. The Vogel-Ellington Corporation got the station in the early 70's. The station moved to 1230 kHz in the mid-70's to go full time, with 1 kW days and 250 watts after sundown. During these early years the station appears to have had a typical small town format of local information, country, black-oriented programming and more. The FM simulcast with this station for much of the day. By 1980, the FM was simulcasting the AM fulltime, and both had a MOR (middle of the road) format. By '82 or '83 the stations were doing country music full time. Around 1990 the stations had a mix of rock and country music, and eventually morphed into a mix of adult contemporary and oldies, before settling on classic rock by the mid-90's. Around this time, ownership of the stations was in the hands of Bennie Hewitt, who later operated under the name Capital Assets.

The station appears to have won a permit in 1996 that would have seen the station change to 1190 kHz, with 10 kW days and 300 watts night. Oddly, it would have been a two site operation, with the day tower out in the sticks north of Gainestown on Fools Acre Road, well north of Jackson, and the night site located in the city limits of Jackson itself. Perhaps seeing the futility of such an endeavor, the permit was eventually returned to the FCC.

In the year 2000, the longtime simulcast between the AM and FM were broken off when this station flipped to a news/talk format, which only lasted a year before reverting to music with a "Music of Your Life" nostalgia format. By 2002, the calls had changed to WRJX. Nostalgia was another short-lived format, as 2003 saw the format changed to black gospel.

In more recent times, the station found its way back to standards. Bennie Hewitt's Capital Assets sold this station, along with WBMH and WHOD, for $500,000 to Jason Kyzer's Kyzer Communications (as "Radio Center of Jackson, Inc.), in March 2017.

Kyzer took the all his area stations off the air in mid-November 2017, and later filed for bankruptcy.

In early Februrary 2018 it was announced that Thomas A. Butts' Pine City Radio would be acquiring the former Kyzer stations for $200,000, from the bankruptcy trustee Terrie S. Owens. It is planned to return the stations to the air via LMA before the purchase is complete. Shortly after the announcement, the station received a new construction permit for a companion FM translator on 107.1 MHz. The two sister FMs to this station (WHOD and WBMH) resumed operations shortly after the sale was announced; this station remains off air as of the start of April 2018.

As of June 2019, the FCC has cancelled the license due to the station being off the air for an extended amount of time and failing to respond to an FCC inquiry. A few months later, the translator's permit was also cancelled.