AM Technical Profile: WMOB
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- Frequency:
- 1360
- Format:
- Religious
- Transmitter
Location:
- [map]
[bird's
eye] [street
view] Near the USS Alabama battleship on the Mobile Causeway,
at the former WLVV/WNGL 1410 site.
- Power (ERP):
- Day: 9 kW
- Night: 200 watts
- Antenna:
- Day: 2 towers,
major lobe due north, minor lobe due south. [pattern
- PDF]
- Night: 2 towers,
major lobes east and west, nulled north to south. [pattern
- PDF]
- Other
Information:
-
0.5 mV/m Daytime
Groundwave Service Contour
from the FCC's Public Files
[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]
[FCCInfo]
- [Radio-Locator]
- [Wikipedia]
[Article]
Mobile Press-Register story
on the interference caused to WMOB at its original transmitting site
when Austal and AIDT began building buildings near the site.
[Article]
Gulf Coast News Today story about the Buddy Tucker stations
in Mobile shutting down in November 2020.
[Google
Maps] Link to the location of the original transmitter site
for the station, now an Austal outbuilding.
[Picture] Image from a
Hyundai OEM radio, showing the PTY (format), RT (RadioText) and PS
(station name) fields of the FM translator. From December 2022.
- Owned by UM
Enterprise, LLC
Silent
// W239CW Mobile, AL
- History:
- FCC records say
this station was first licensed in May 1961, put on the air by
Jemcon Broadcasting Company (E. B. Jemison and Frank Conwell).
For the first five months of the station's existence, it was
WCIQ. Alabama Educational Television (now APT) requested the
call sign for their channel 7 broadcast from atop Mount Cheaha east
of Birmingham, so the station became WLIQ in October 1959.
The station had a classy easy listening format from the start,
broadcasting from studios at 58 St. Michael Street in downtown
Mobile. The transmitter was originally just east of downtown,
on the east bank of the Alabama River on Blakely Island, about 1,600
feet east southeast of the Wallace Tunnel exit.
Hartzog Broadcasting bought the station in 1964 and moved the
studios to the Battle House Hotel in 1970. It's likely that
they changed the format to a Middle of the Road (MOR)
presentation.
The station was sold again in 1971, this time to Southland of
Alabama, who put on a country music format. In 1973 the
studios moved to 1755 Springhill Avenue. Stiff country
competition from both WALA and growing FM stations meant the station
struggled to attract strong ratings. Being a directional
daytime only signal did not help. It's possible the station
had a top 40 format for a short time in the mid to late 70's.
WLIQ, Inc. (David Siegel, Jeff Stacy and Jerry Shiverdecker)
acquired the license in 1978. It appears that the station had
a religious format during this time.
The station flipped to a talk format in June 1980, with the WPCY
calls. The station license was transferred to WPCY, Inc. in
February 1981. Beacon Broadcasting acquired the license just a
few months later in June 1981; they kept the news/talk format but
changed the calls to WIXO in November 1981.
Syndicated preacher Buddy Tucker bought the station in April 1984
for $395,000 and put his own religious programming on the
station, changing the call sign to WMOB in the process. For
many years, the studio was located next to the two towers on Blakely
Island.
Shipbuilders Austal began building a new facility adjacent to the
WMOB studio and transmitter site in 2008. The building, which
is made of metal, is nine acres in size and began to cause pattern
distortions to WMOB's signal. Workers erecting the metal
structure also were receiving electric shocks due to the RF energy
radiated out from the station. An AL.com article (linked
above) details the tribulations of the station versus Austal and
Tucker's quest to relocate the station. By 2010, AIDT was
building their Maritime Training Center on the other side of the
WMOB property, causing further disruption to the signal. That
year, Tucker bought the former WLVV 1410 site further down the
Causeway for $455,000 and began working to move his station to that
site.
After several Special Temporary Authority grants to get the station
on the air from the WLVV site, the FCC finally granted a full
construction permit in July 2012. Along with the move, Tucker
was able to secure higher daytime power (up to 9 kW from 5
kW). The station was officially licensed to its current site
in November 2015.
Buddy Tucker passed away in mid-December 2017; the stations he ran
including this one continue to be operated by his widow, Levaughn
Tucker.
The station was granted a construction permit for a new FM
translator companion station in September 2019. The facility
is on 95.7 MHz and authorized for 250 watts from the WMOB tower on
the Causeway.
In November 2020 it was announced that Levaughn Tucker and veteran
station employee Debby Day were no longer able to attend to
day-to-day operations of the station or WTOF in Bay Minette, and
that both stations would cease operations by 22 November. A
Silent Special Temporary Authority (STA) was not filed for the
station until December 2020, however. The station returned to
the air briefly in November 2021 to keep the license active.
In April 2022, it was
announced that UM Enterprise, LLC (Dave Minard) would be
acquiring WTOF And WMOB from Buddy Tucker Associates for just
$100. In late August 2022, Buddy Tucker Associates filed
an application to move the translator that was never built to a
tower in Spanish Fort, greatly increasing its antenna height and
coverage area. That permit was granted that same month,
and a license to cover was filed for the translator in early
September 2022, although it was not heard on air by anyone in
the area. By the start of October, it was confirmed to be
on the air but relaying WOWB out of Brewton instead of
WMOB. In December 2022, it was noted the translator had
added RDS which showed the WMOB call signs and even an e-mail
address for WMOB (which leads to a dead domain), but was still
relaying WOWB.