Technical Profile: WJQX

FM Technical Profile: WJQX

Station Name:: JOX Tuscaloosa
Frequency:: 100.5
Format:: Sports Talk
Transmitter Location:: [map] About a mile north of the intersection of Serty Boyd Road and North Scotsville Road in rural Bibb County.
Power (ERP):: 69 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 1014 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; Mono; :
PS-ESPN 100.5
Time-yes
Text-ESPN JOX 2
PTY-Talk
PI-KABJ-FM; AUX: 35 kW @ 812 feet. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
How's the Signal?: Not bad, but not great. Strongest west of downtown and in the Hoover, Helena and Pelham areas of Shelby County. Really suffers east of downtown and in the far east suburbs.
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]

[Facebook] For the main station, Jox 94.5, in Birmingham.
[Twitter] For the main station, Jox 94.5, in Birmingham.; [Wikipedia]; [Bhamwiki] Information on the station from the WRAX era; [Bhamwiki] Information on the station from the WWMM era; [Bhamwiki] Information on the station from the WAPI-FM era

[Studio] Street View imagery of the Cumulus Birmingham studio facilities.
Owner:: Cumulus
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit to Warrior Broadcasting for a new Class A station, licensed to Northport, a suburb of Tuscaloosa. The granted facility was for 3 kW on 100.7 MHz at an antenna height of 253 feet HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain) from a very rural site east of Lurleen B. Wallace State Park, east of Tuscaloosa County Road 49. A license to cover for this facility was granted in March 1992 and the station signed on as "ARRO 100.7, All Rock and Roll Oldies" with a Classic Hits format.

In August of 1994, the station was granted a permit to relocate to a taller tower between Coker and Romulus in west Tuscaloosa County, with 11.5 kW at 486 feet HAAT. A license to cover for that upgrade was granted in May 1995.

Ownership of the station passed to Radio South, Inc. in 1999; it appears that Warrior Broadcasting had previously been a sub-group of Radio South when the station signed on.

In August 2001, the station was granted a permit to change to 100.5 MHz while relocating to the WTUG tower south of Tuscaloosa. This change came with a big boost to 100 kW from 981 feet HAAT. It was never built out, however, as the station filed to modify the permit to get a location closer to the growing southern suburbs of Birmingham. In October 2002 the station was granted a move to the currently-licensed site in Bibb County (above), with a drop to 85 kW at 912 feet.

While the move was in progress, the station dropped its longtime Classic Hits/Classic Rock format to flip to a Modern Rock format as "Z-100, Bama's Best Rock" in December 2002, with the WANZ call letters. On 15 April 2003, the station signed on from the Bibb County facilities and began marketing itself more as a Tuscaloosa and Birmingham station. Shortly after signing on the bigger signal, the station announced they would be bringing Birmingham-based Beaner and Ken for mornings from WRAX. They would leave the station over contract issues at the end of 2004. At some point during all these changes, Radio South was acquired or subsumed into Apex Broadcasting. In December 2004, the station was granted a construction permit to boost power to 93 kW at 1,014 feet HAAT to better reach Birmingham. Part of the permit also involved re-licensing the site from Northport to Helena, a Birmingham suburb in Shelby County. This permit would never be built out and the station would continue to identify the city of license as "Northport-Birmingham" in the top of the hour ID.; Citadel Broadcasting bought WANZ from Apex Broadcasting in Tuscaloosa in the winter of 2005, and announced plans to move their once-popular Alternative Rock station "The X" from Birmingham to 100.5. On March 3 2005 the station began simulcasting WRAX out of Birmingham, and at the end of March the station was the sole outlet for The X in the area. The call letters changed to WRAX in April 2005.; On the 29^th of November, 2006 the station flipped to an all sports format, simulcasting WJOX-AM. With that simulcast, the WJOX calls moved to this station, and the AM became WSPZ.

On the 8^th of January 2007 the two stations split, with each carrying separate sports programming. Citadel sister station WYSF in Birmingham began stunting on the fourth of July with a format flip. WYSF eventually became WJOX, taking all the sports programming to the station in Birmingham proper. In November 2007, the station was granted a new construction permit; like the previous one, this one would have the station re-licensed to Helena, but with just 69 kW at 1,014 feet HAAT.; On the last day of July 2008 the calls changed to WWMM, as the WJOX calls moved to 94.5. On August 11^th the station stopped simulcasting 94.5 and began simulcasting another Citadel property, classic rocker WZRR 99.5 in Birmingham. Through all this stunting, the Reg's Coffeehouse program moved from 94.5 to 100.5. The stereo was turned back on, too.; The move of Reg's Coffeehouse to 100.5 was an omen - on Friday August 15^th the station flipped to an Adult Album Alternative (AAA) music format as "Live 100.5".; The station changed city of license from Northport to Helena in October 2008, ahead of a license to cover for the last set of changes, which was granted by the FCC in October 2008.; In July 2009 it was announced that former MTV VJ and Birmingham native Alan Hunter would be joining the program b*SIDE on Live 100.5, with psychologist Dr. Josh Klapow. The show is not musical in nature and is mental-health/current issues oriented.; A week or so before Valentine's Day, February 2010, it was discovered that Citadel Broadcasting was planning to flip the station from music to a simulcast of AM-talker WAPI. This generated a lot of listener outrage and led to a "Save Live 100.5" page on Facebook, which grew to over 20,000 followers. Station management later confirmed the change after the entire staff was laid off. As of February 15^th, the station went automated with no jocks. The switch to talk happened at 12:01am on February 22^nd.; Although it shared the call letters with its AM sister, they were not in a direct simulcast. The AM carried more syndicated programming while the FM was geared towards more local shows.

As of the start of 2011, the move seems to be working, with WAPI leading crosstown rival WERC in most ratings dayparts.

With many changes in the sports radio landscape around Birmingham in 2013, Cumulus announced a shuffle of its own: all local personalities on WAPI-FM are moving to the AM, the FM is switching to ESPN Sports and the calls (as of 1 August 2013) are WJQX. The sports format debuted on 12 August 2013 as "Jox 2: ESPN".

In August 2025 it was reported that the station dropped the "Jox 2: ESPN" name to re-brand as "Jox Tuscaloosa", picking up some (but not all) of the programming heard on WJOX in Birmingham. Cumulus had recently also switched a station in Mobile to "Jox Mobile" with similar programming.