WIQI

For the station in Chicago, Illinois on 101.1 FM that held the call sign WIQI from 2011 to 2014, see WKQX (FM).
WIQI
City Watseka, Illinois
Broadcast area Iroquois County and Kankakee
Branding Classic Hits 95.9 WIQI
Frequency 95.9 MHz
First air date February 2008 (2008-02) (part-time, as WMLF)
June 23, 2015 (2015-06-23) (full-time)
Format Classic hits
ERP 6,000 watts
HAAT 74 meters
Class A
Facility ID 164237
Transmitter coordinates 40°49′22″N 87°44′54″W / 40.82278°N 87.74833°W / 40.82278; -87.74833Coordinates: 40°49′22″N 87°44′54″W / 40.82278°N 87.74833°W / 40.82278; -87.74833
Callsign meaning Calls inherited from former sister company Merlin Media; formerly stood for IQI as a visual equivalent to "101" on Merlin's former station on 101.1 FM in Chicago
Former callsigns WMLF (2006-2011)
WWWN (7/4/2011-7/21/2011)
WKQX (2011-2014)
Owner Radioactive, LLC
Webcast Listen Live
Website 959wiqi.com

WIQI (95.9 FM) is a radio station in Watseka, Illinois that is owned by Radioactive, LLC and is operated under a local marketing agreement. The station currently carries a classic hits format covering Watseka along with Iroquois County and Kankakee with an output of 6000 watts ERP.[1]

History

From 2011 until March 2015, its main use as a facility was to hold call signs for the moribund media company, Merlin Media (with which Radioactive formerly shared ownership with radio executive Randy Michaels), where it was used to hold the WKQX calls historically associated with the 101.1 FM frequency in Chicago to prevent a competitor in that market from acquiring them. During this period, the station itself broadcast for only days at a time in each late winter in order to prevent the license from being revoked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for inactivity. The station's original 14 meter HAAT 1000 watt signal was limited to Watseka. On January 16, 2014, its call letters changed from WKQX to WIQI.[2]

In March 2015, the station asked for a construction permit to widen the signal's coverage, mainly towards the Kankakee area; this was granted on April 15. On June 23, 2015, WIQI placed this facility on the air;[3] at that time, it began to broadcast full-time with daytime airstaff. This came shortly before the FCC began to disallow the abuse of license holding to keep a station silent on July 2, 2015.[4]

References

  1. ↑ WIQI Facility Record, fcc.gov. Accessed August 12, 2015
  2. ↑ Call Sign History, fcc.gov. Accessed August 12, 2015
  3. ↑ "Resumption of Operations". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. July 15, 2015. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  4. ↑ Sashkin, Davina (22 July 2015). "Audio Overkill: New AM and FM Licenses Conditioned on Continuous Operation". CommLaw Blog. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.