FM Technical Profile: WAVH

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Station Name:

FM Talk 106.5

Frequency:

106.5

Format:

Talk, news

Transmitter Location:

[map] [street view] [bird's eye] Off Shelton Beach Road in NW Mobile at Pallister Place South.

Power (ERP):

50 kW

Antenna:

Omnidirectional

Antenna HAAT:

466 feet

Other Information:

60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

:
PS-(show) on FM TALK 106.5
Time-present Text-FM TALK 106.5 online at www.FMTALK1065.com
Text-(blank)
PTY-Talk
PI-WAVH-FM

More Information:

[FCC]

[FCCdata]

[Radio-Locator]

[Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Picture] A poster for the station during its years playing oldies music.
[Picture] Image of the RDS text display on an Insignia HD portable, showing PI (call letters) and Radio Text fields.
[Picture] Image of the RDS text display on a Sony Bluetooth portable headset, showing a different part of the Radio Text field.
[Picture] Image of the RDS text from a Mazda sedan's radio, showing the PS (station name), Radio Text and PTY (format) fields.

Mono

Owner:

Bigler Broadcasting

Noted Personalities:

Sean Sullivan, Wayne Garnder (mornings), Herman Cain (mid-mornings only), Mike Huckabee (middays), Michael Savage (evenings), Clark Howard (late evening), Overnight America (overnights), Phil Hendrie (overnight Friday and Saturday only).

History:

Came on the air in the early 90's with the calls WFMI as a Bay Minette lite-rock outlet. Later was re-licensed to Daphne, closer to Mobile. Within a short time of signing on, the WAVH calls and oldies format were abandoned by 96.1 in a competitive move; 106.5 picked up the format and calls, which are still in place today. In August 2006 the station began stunting as "Jimmy 106 - All Jimmy Buffet, all the time", then later flipped from oldies to adult hits as "106-5 The Pirate".  At one time was owned by Baldwin Broadcasting, but operated by Cumulus.

 

WAVH flipped to a news talk format on May 1^st 2009.  Station promos make a big deal of broadcasting in "digital FM stereo" but the station has neither HD digital nor a stereo pilot.  In 2012 the station dropped the last two hours of Neal Boortz's show to pick up the new Mike Huckabee Show, moving Clark Howard to late evenings in the process.  This move was unusual as Huckabee's show became heard all over Mobile, Pensacola and Pascagoula via WCOA-FM, who aired Huckabee right after WAVH picked up the show.

 

The station's tower came down on 23 October 2012, and the station resumed broadcasting shortly thereafter from an unknown aux site in town.  The tower also held WIJD and WASG, two religious AM radio stations.  It was deemed unsafe and required an emergency takedown by the tower owners.  The station quickly assembled a backup site off Shelton Beach Road, which covered much of metro Mobile despite being just 2500 watts.  The station received a construction permit in May 2013 to make the Shelton Beach tower its permanent home, with 50,000 watts again and signed on with this facility that same month.