Technical Profile: WARB

AM Technical Profile: WARB

Frequency:: 700
Format:: Hip-Hop
Transmitter Location:: [map] East of CR-64, just south of CR-18, and west of CR-45 in Henry County.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1.6 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]; [Facebook] For Vibe 105.9
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[Studio] Street View of the station's studio, in the same building that houses WTVY-TV. This station is on the 8th floor.
Silent; // W290DG Dothan, AL
Owned by Good Guys Broadcasting
History:: This facility dates back to an original construction permit first issued in 1990 for a daytime-only station running 1.6 kW. That permit expired not once, not twice, but three times before the station was finally able to get on the air. Original owners Holy Ground Broadcasting sold the license to Genesis Radio Company for $10 in 1994. They got the station running in the summer of 1995, although FCC data shows a license to cover not being filed until October of 1996. The station's original call sign was WGZS; the station aired a Southern Gospel format. They may have broadcast in C-QUAM stereo during this time.

Starting in June 1998, the station was passed from one company or owner to another in fairly rapid succession. Celebration Communications bought the station, along with WIZB in Abbeville, for $540,000 in June 1998. At that time, the station began simulcasting WIZB's Contemporary Christian format.

The license was transferred to Michael B. Glinter in April 2002. He sold it to James T. Lee in August 2002 for $140,000 plus $120 a month "antenna rental" fee, but this agreement was never consummated. The station was then sold to Good Samaritan Communications of Pioche in October 2003 for $165,000. Tropicana Media, LLC, acquired the station in March 2002 for $150,000. The station was then sold to Victory Broadcasting in March 2006 for $151,000. The station fell silent in October 2006, citing financial issues.

Victory Broadcasting sold the station to Jalo Broadcasting in December of 2006 for $225,000. They flipped the format to Ooldies as WEEL "Oldies 700, The Big Wheel" in March, when the station finally came back on the air, but was off again by August 2007, citing financial issues. It did not come back on the air until late Spring 2008.

The station license and assets were to be sold to Dothan Broadcasting, LLC in June 2008 for the curious price of $246,589.12. Dothan Broadcasting entered into a time brokerage agreement with Jalo Broadcasting at the same time. The station fell silent again, this time from August 2008 through May 2009, when it came back on with an FM translator in tow, on 100.1 MHz. At some point in 2009, the station's translator was sold to Wiregrass Media, who used it to rebroadcast one of their stations. The station went silent once again in August 2009, citing loss of programming due to termination of a time brokerage agreement.

By January 2010, the station license was back in the hands of Victory Broadcasting, for the tidy sum of $150,000. It's unknown if the format ever changed during this period of ownership musical chairs, or stayed oldies the entire time. Shortly before returning to the air under Victory's ownership in March of 2010, the station's call sign changed to WCNF.

The station fell silent for the fifth time in December 2010, again citing financial concerns. The station stayed off until April 2011, when it came back on the air with more Oldies music, although a resumption of operations notice was never filed. The station fell silent again at some point after that report was circulated. Victory passed the station on to Alaradio Media (Alabama Media/Clay Holladay) in July 2011. The purchase price was $10,000. They filed a resumption of operations with the FCC in November 2011, and flipped to a News, Talk, Sports and Agricultural format as "700 The Farm". That format was quite short lived, as later in that same November the station flipped to Classic Country as "Dixie 700", citing a lack of advertisers for the conservative talk and farm info format.

The station filed yet another silent STA with the FCC in March 2014, again citing financial issues. The station resumed operations in January 2015 with another new format: Black Gospel. The slogan was "Power 700" until the station acquired another FM translator, then morphed to "Power 107.7" to reflect the FM's dial position. The station was reported silent in November 2015, and a filing with the FCC cites a change in the power availability at the tower site, ridding the site of single-phase power.

The station was on the air once again by May 2016, with yet another new format: ESPN Sports. It's thought that the station has been off the air quite a bit more than what is listed in FCC filings; in some cases the FM translator was noted to be broadcasting programming while the AM was off for extended periods, as recently as September 2016. The legality of that translator (W299BX) has also been called into question by observers. It was originally running 250 watts from atop the Channel 4 building in downtown Dothan, but had a construction permit to relocate to a common FM tower behind the Toyota dealer on the southwest side of Dothan, off Ross Clark Circle, with 88 watts. That grant was rescinded shortly afterwards, but a Special Temporary Authority was filed in October 2016 to allow them to continue operating from there while a new permit was requested. The translator's future was thrown into further limbo when Fox Broadcasting, licensee of WFXX in Georgiana, filed an informal objection alleging interference to their station, also on 107.7 MHz, in places like Enterprise, Coffee Springs and Level Plains.

The station dropped the WCNF calls in early February 2018 to become WARB. That same month, the FCC dismissed the complaint of interference against the FM translator when Alabama Media contacted two of the "listeners" and discovered they never actually signed the complaints; Alabama Media was unable to reach the remaining complainants. The station added a second translator on 105.9 MHz, in March 2018.

After the 105.9 translator signed on in April 2018, the station stunted with 10,000 commercial free songs. After that ended, they launched a "southern style" Classic Rock and Blues format as "Roadhouse 106". That ran until Hurricane Michael damaged the station and took it off the air 10 October 2018. The station relaunched as Hip-Hop "Vibe 105.9" at the start of 2019. A few months after launch, the translator on 107.7 MHz was spun off to rebroadcast a different format on a different Holladay-owned station, WDBT.

In late March 2019, the FCC fined the station's ownership $18,000 for the various instances of rules-breaking associated with the old 107.7 MHz translator. Factors included the lengthy (reportedly 11 months) time off air without filing an STA, the operation of the translator from the wrong location as well as the FM translator operating while the AM was silent. It would lead to a consent decree in late 2021 between Alabama Media (Alaradio) and the FCC, reducing the fine to a $13,000 civil penalty and erasing the history of non-compliance with the translator.

The station was sold by Alaradio Media to Good Guys Broadcasting (Brian Baker and Anthony Donelson) for $32,500. They had been programming it via LMA since the flip to Hip-Hop.

In early January 2024 the station filed a Silent STA (Special Temporary Authority) due to ongoing transmitter issues. The station was silent as of 31 December 2023.