Technical Profile: WYCT

FM Technical Profile: WYCT

Station Name:: Cat Country 98.7
Frequency:: 98.7
Format:: Country
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] Just west of AL-112 (Old Pensacola Road) near the Perdido River and AL/FL border, down Alec Road.
Power (ERP):: 100 kW
Antenna:: Directional
Antenna HAAT:: 981 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; — Increased power: 10%; :
PS-WYCT [song title/artist]
Time-No
Text-Cat Country 98.7 850-430-1987; Text-CMA Station Of The Year Nominee & Hometown Proud!
PTY-Country
PI-WYCT-FM
AF-98.7 MHz (filler)

HD-2: Adult Contemporary
"Pensacola's Playlist"
// W233CM Milton, FL

HD-3: Talk/News
"Newsradio 92.3 FM 1620AM"
// WNRP Gulf Breeze, FL
// W222BR Pensacola, FL

HD-4: Sports Talk
"ESPN Pensacola"
// WEBY Milton, FL
// W256DL Milton, FL; AUX: 1 kW directional @ 981 feet. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.
AUX: 14 kW @ 246 feet. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC. (CP)
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Facebook] For Cat Country 98.7
[Facebook] For Pensacola's Playlist 94.5
[Facebook] For Newsradio 92.3/1620
[Facebook] For ESPN Pensacola

[Picture] Image of RDS text display from an Insignia HD portable, showing the PI (call sign) and Radio Text fields, from late 2016.
[Picture] Image of RDS text display from a Mazda sedan's radio, showing the PS (station name), Radio Text and PTY (format) fields, from mid-2017.

[Picture] Image of the HD PAD (Program Associated Data) for the main channel, including Artist Experience (station logo graphic), on a car radio, from December 2017.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD and Artist Experience for the main channel, from August 2022.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD and Artist Experience for the "Pensacola's Playlist 94.5" subchannel, from August 2022.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD and Artist Experience for the "Newsradio 92.3 FM and 1620 AM" subchannel, from August 2022.
[Picture] Image of the HD PAD and Artist Experience for the "ESPN Pensacola" subchannel, from August 2022.

[Studio] Street View imagery of the ADX Pensacola studios behind University Town Plaza in Pensacola.

[Aircheck] This "scoped" aircheck has had all the music excised (for copyright reasons), and includes all the commercial breaks over a 1.5 hour period on 23 August 2017. It features local ads, disc jockey patter, public service announcements, weather, traffic and more. Approximately 21 minutes in length. M4A (AAC) format, 27.97 MB total.
Owner:: Mary Elizabeth Hoxeng Revocable Trust
History:: This frequency was first allocated to the Pensacola area back around 1985 as a class C2, with a whopping 21 applicants vying for the last major dial position on the Alabama/Panhandle coast. Marty and Barbara MacGreevy of Perdido Key (Panama Mac's owner) got the intial decision from the FCC judge. Several behind-the-scenes delays occurred, delaying the debut of the station for over a decade: first, on of the losing applicants contested the FCC decision all the way to the Supreme Court. The moving of a transmitter licensed to Andalusia on 98.1 MHz later created more complex tower-siting issues. Eventually FCC policy changed, allowing the station to upgrade from a C2 to a C1 class, while iHeart Radio's Panama City station on 98.5 MHz accepted a voluntary downgrade from a class C1 to a C0.

The station finally debuted in 2003, playing Christmas music to Pensacola. After the holidays it flipped to contemporary country as "Cat Country 98.7". This is the Mobile-Pensacola market's third country station. WKSJ plays primarily to Mobile and has miniscule ratings in Pensacola, and Pensacola's WXBM barely makes a dent in Mobile. In December 2003 it became the first station in the Mobile-Pensacola market to begin broadcasting using Ibiquity's HD Radio (IBOC) system.

As of fall 2010 the HD had been switched off, although it came back on after a transmitter upgrade at the end of August, 2017, then went off a few days later. The station filed to operate the HD feature at higher than standard power (10% on the upper sideband, 5% on the lower sideband). The station began broadcasting in HD again in mid-December 2017, but with mono analog audio. The HD was off (again) due to technical issues in May 2018, but came on a few days after initially going off. Analog audio continued to be mono until mid-June 2018, when it finally went back in stereo.

As part of the update to HD radio, the station began carrying sister News/Talk WNRP 1620 on the HD 3 and 4 channels, feeding a couple of area translators. In July 2018 a domain registration leaked the company's plans to launch a Sports Talk format on the HD-2, feeding W233CM on 94.5 MHz, a translator moved in to Pensacola from nearby Milton. It appears it launched on 22 August 2018, with one local show at noon and ESPN content the rest of the day.

Shortly after ADX acquired crosstown talk rival WEBY in Milton in the winter of 2019, the HD-3 channel switched from WNRP to WEBY in March. That only lasted through part of the summer as WEBY was then flipped to a simulcast of WNRP. That, in turn, only lasted a few weeks, as in mid-August 2019, ADX flipped WEBY and its translator into the home of Sports Talk "ESPN Pensacola". It was also announced that a new format would debut on the original sports translator at 94.5 MHz sometime in September.

In early November 2019, the station re-arranged some of the programming on their HD subchannels, launching a Christmas music format on the 94.5 MHz translator fed by WYCT-HD2. The company also said they'd debut a new format on the 1 January 2010 with this broadcast. The ESPN Pensacola format moved to WEBY and its translator as well as WYCT-HD4. After Christmas, the HD-2 began stunting with various versions of the awful earworn "Baby Shark" song. It finally flipped to an Adult Contemporary format as "Pensacola's Blend" on 13 January 2020.

In June 2021, David Hoxeng's ADX Communications swapped this station, as well as the W233CM translator, to his wife Mary's revocable trust in exchange for three residential properties held by that trust.