Technical Profile: WCOA

AM Technical Profile: WCOA

Frequency:: 1370
Format:: Talk, News
Transmitter Location:: [map] [bird's eye] Hollywood Street, just south of Massachusetts Avenue in the Scenic Terrace neighborhood of Pensacola.
Power (ERP):: Day and night: 5 kW
Night: 4.4 kW
Antenna:: Day: 1 tower; Night: 3 towers, directional ESE towards Pensacola. [pattern - PDF]
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]; [Pensapedia]; [Facebook]
[Studio] Street View imagery of the Cumulus Pensacola stations' studios off Marcus Pointe Boulevard in the Brent community.; Owned by Cumulus Broadcasting LLC
// W285FY Pensacola, FL
History:: Came on the air way back in February 1926. In the 30s it was broadcasting from the San Marcos Hotel on Palafox Street, now demolished. WCOA (Wonderful City Of Advantages) has been, if anything, consistent. They celebrated their 65th anniversary with the same calls… The format was always adult-oriented middle-of-the-road with heavy personality, lots of network presence and play by play sports. There were only two minor changes all this time: the network affiliation changed from NBC to CBS and the music eliminated in favor of all news and talk in the early 90's. WCOA-FM (now WJTQ) grew out of this station and the AM's sister station today. History and a few pictures are available on the station's website.

The station filed a Special Temporary authority in May 2018 to operate with just 2 kW with the nighttime directional antenna during the day due to an equipment failure. In June 2018 the station was granted a construction permit for a new FM translator on 104.9 MHz, located west of Cantonment.

In March 2021, the station filed both a new Special Temporary Authority and a concurrent modification request. While the repairs to the antenna system were completed in 2021, the antenna site owners had removed some height from the towers, upsetting the nighttime pattern. In June 2021, the station was granted a permit to permanently operate with the shorter towers; it also eliminated some extra pattern requirements at night, which necessitated a drop to 4.4 kW after sunset. The STA was renewed as recently as April 2022, with a license to cover filed for permanent operations filed in June 2022. That was granted by the FCC in early September 2022.

A license to cover for the translator was filed in December 2021. It was filed concurrently with a minor modification to move the translator from Cantonment to the Cumulus studios west of North W Street and Marcus Pointe Boulevard.