Technical Profile: WANI

AM Technical Profile: WANI

Frequency:: 1400
Format:: Talk, News
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] [street view] Co-located with WTLM, behind the iHeartMedia studios on Saugahatchee Lake Road in Opelika. (*The Auburn Network's studios are elsewhere.)
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW; Night: 1 kW
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]
[Article] Story on FCC losing bid to revoke station's license due to Mike Hubbard's ethics conviction.; // WGZZ-HD2 Waverly; // W254AY Auburn
History:: This station dates back to an original Construction Permit issued to J. H. Orr, Yetta G. Samford, C. S. Shealy, and Thomas D. Sanford (as Opelika-Auburn Broadcasting Company) in the spring of 1939. The original authorization was on 1370 kHz, with 250 watts during the day and 100 watts at night. The studio and transmitter were originally at 1400 Auburn-Opelika Road in Opelika. The station signed on in the summer of 1940 as WJHO for J. H. Orr's initials.

The NARBA Reallocation occurred in 1941, and this station moved to 1400 kHz. In 1948, the station was granted the ability to transmit at 250 watts day and night.

In July 1961, the station signed on a new Collins 300-J-2 transmitter and boosted their power to 1 kW day and night. Two years later in 1963, the station moved studio and transmitter to 2009 Pepperell Parkway in Opelika.

During a license renewal phase in 1970, The Human Rights Council of Alabama submitted a petition to deny the station's license renewal, but it was later withdrawn. Prior to the mid-70's, it appears the station had something of a full service slate of programming, including Top 40, Country, Middle-of-the-Road and even Black-oriented programming. By 1977, it was listed as "WJHO 14" in advertisements.

The station was sold to Sun Broadcasting in 1991 for $50,000.

By the mid-90's, the concept of a full service slate of programming was antiquated and the station had flipped to a standard News/Talk format. The license was acquired by Mike Hubbard's Auburn Networks, Inc. in November 1997 for $135,000. The next month, the call sign changed to WANI. Hubbard was a Speaker of the House in the Alabama House of Representatives, and went on to own WGZZ in Waverly and an LPTV station permit in Auburn before being convicted of ethics violations and being forced to sell his broadcasting properties.

In May 2022, the FCC, after several years of investigation, lost their bid to force Auburn Networks to lose their broadcast licenses.

The station is currently heard on WGZZ-FM's HD2 channel as well as translator W254AY, via that HD2 broadcast.