Technical Profile: WPLX-LP

FM Technical Profile: WPLX-LP

Station Name:: The River
Frequency:: 93.3
Format:: Variety Hits
Transmitter Location:: [map] Southeast of the intersection of Dearing Downs Drive and County Road 52 along the Helena/Pelham city line.
Power (ERP):: 9 watts
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 328 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :
PS-TheRiver
Time-[?]
Text-Greatest Hits of the 60s, 70s &…
PTY-[?]
PI-[?]
More Information:: [FCC]
[FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Image] RDS display from an unknown car stereo in the station's coverage area, March 2019.
[Image] RDS display from an unknown car stereo in the station's coverage area, May 2019.
Owner:: North Shelby Community Radio
History:: North Shelby Community Radio (headed by ABC 33/40 weekend sportscaster Jeff Speegle) was granted a permit for a new LPFM station in Pelham in January 2015. The station was originally in a three-way competition on its chosen frequency, so it moved from a proposed site above the Oak Mountain Amphitheater off I-65 in Pelham to the Hampton Lakes subdivision east of I-65, which put it far enough out to not have signal overlap issues with the other stations. The station finally signed on in July 2017 with a Christian teaching format.

In mid-September 2018, it was reported that the station had flipped to an oldies-leaning but wide-ranging Variety Hits format as "The River".

The station received a construction permit in early December 2018 to relocate from its original site on a mountain east of I-65 to a site behind Pelham High School. As part of the move, the station will drop vertical polarization and lower power from 100 to 50 watts. That permit was modified in May to include vertical and horizontal power, then modified again a few days later to operate at just 9 watts hortizontal-only power from the hilltop near Dearing Downs Drive and County Road 52 between Helena and Pelham. The station filed a license to cover in June 2019.