FM Technical Profile: WKLV

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Station Name:
K-Love
Frequency:
93.5
Format:
Christian Contemporary
Transmitter Location:
[map] In rural Clarke County, Mississippi, about halfway between Lisman, Alabama and Quitman, Mississippi.  Along the north side of CR-420 about half a mile north of its intersection with CR-425.
Power (ERP):
32 kW
Antenna:
Directional
Antenna HAAT:
610 feet
Other Information:
60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
Rebroadcasts KLVR, Middletown, CA
// W261CS Livingston, AL (actual site: Meridian, MS)
: PS- K~Love (artist/song) Time-[?] Text-93.5 Positive & encouraging K-Love (artist/song) PTY-Adult Hits PI-WMLG-FM
More Information:
[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]
[Radio-Locator]
[Wikipedia]
[Facebook] Facebook for the K-Love network
[Picture] Image showing the RDS data decoded by a Radio Shack DX-398, showing the PS (station name) field.
Owner:
Educational Media Foundation
History:
This station dates back to 1979 as WQGL, a small class A serving the Butler community.  In 1997 they received an upgrade to 25 kW and became WKZB a short time later.  Around the time of the upgrade, the station started targeting the nearby Meridian, Mississippi market.  After another minor upgrade that moved the transmitter all the way into Mississippi, the station dropped its then classic rock format for a variety hits format as Mix 93.5, then dropped that later for hot AC, as V 93.5 with the WMLV calls.
 
In June 2011 it was announced the station was being handed off to religious-themed Educational Media Foundation as part of a big sell-off of stations in Meridian.  That deal was finalized in August 2011; the station was noted to be off-air in early September 2011 before a switchover to the K-Love Christian music format, which is a direct rebroadcast of KLVR in Middletown, California.  In April 2015 the station was also being heard on translator W261CS, on 100.1 MHz, in Meridian.  It was moved in from Livingston, Alabama.  By middle July 2015 the station's call letters changed to from WMLV to WMLG, as the K-Love folks moved the WMLV calls to a newly acquired station in Miami.  The RDS continued to show "WMLV" as the station name, even after the call sign changed to WCLR in early June 2017.

The station's call sign changed to WMKQ at the end of November, 2018.  This brings it into line with most of the other K-Love affiliates, which have either LV or K somewhere in the call sign.  It also returns the WCLR call sign to Chicago (via EMF's station in that market) where it was once on a Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary station in that market known as "Clear 102".

In July 2019, the call sign changed again from WMKQ to WKLV.  These two sets of calls swapped places; WKLV was previously on a New York City station that EMF acquired and flipped to their K-Love format.  That station (licensed to Port Chester, NY) flipped to Air1 after EMF bought New York's semi-legendary WPLJ and moved the K-Love format to that bigger signal.