WTZA

WTZA AM 1010 is a radio station licensed to serve Atlanta, Georgia, that broadcasts Spanish Christian music as "Vida 1010AM" ^[1] It broadcasts at a frequency of 1010 kHz with 50,000 watts of power during the daytime, covering north Georgia, 45,000 watts during critical hours and 78 watts during nighttime hours, using an omnidirectional antenna. WTZA is classified as a class D AM broadcast station according to the Federal Communications Commission.

History

The station originally signed-on in 1947 with the broadcast callsign WEAS and was licensed to serve nearby Decatur, Georgia.^[2] The station was founded by Eurith Dickenson ("Dee") Rivers, Jr., son of former governor of Georgia E.D. "Ed" Rivers.^[2] The WEAS callsign stood for Emory University & Agnes Scott College, both of which are located in Decatur.^[2] WEAS' format grew into a combination of hillbilly (or country and western) music, southern gospel music and preaching.^[2] In 1963, the station changed its call sign to WGUN^[3] and a country music format with the station adopting "the big GUN" slogan.^[2] The WEAS call sign went to the Dee Rivers station at 900 MHz in Savannah, GA. WGUN had a news/talk radio format in the early 1990s^[3] before moving to a Christian music and brokered-time format. The WGUN call sign was later assigned to a co-owned AM station in Valdosta, Georgia at 950 kHz (formerly, WGOV-AM to honor Mr. Rivers' father).

Callsigns

On January 25, 2013, the station changed its callsign to WTZA. On January 31, 2013, after a brief simulcast with W233BF "Streetz 94.5", WGUN changed their format to urban oldies, branded as "Old School 1010".^[4]

Again after a simulcast of 94.5 (legally, WSTR FM 94.1 HD3), "broadcast translator" station W257DF on 99.3 switched to simulcasting WTZA at the end of summer 2014, upon making its most recent move toward metro Atlanta. However, since W257DF was only recently authorized by the FCC, it is illegal for it to rebroadcast anything other than another FM station's analog signal. The city of license for this station is Dallas, Georgia, although it has never actually had that city within its broadcast range. It transmits at 99 watts instead of 250, to protect WRAS FM 88.5, which overlaps its 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency centered on 88.6.

Originally applied-for during the 2003 window, the first location northwest of Villa Rica was approved in December 2013 at the full 250 watts. Just a few days later, it applied for a construction permit to move east toward Atlanta, to a point along U.S. 78 (Veterans Memorial Parkway) west of Douglasville. Upon submitting the application for the broadcast license to cover that 130-watt permit, it again applied almost immediately to move east again to Mableton, still keeping Dallas as its supposed city of license, despite being even further away from there than the first two locations. Like other "translator" stations, it is trying to make small "skips" toward the city (and its primary demographic) through a series of "minor modifications". The change of W256BO on 99.1 to W255CJ on 98.9 was also required to allow for this.

In 2014, WTZA split from the simulcast with W257DF (who moved their programming relay to WUBL-HD3), and flipped to Spanish Christian as "Vida 1010."

In late 2015, W257DF was forced off-air by the upgrade of co-channel WCON-FM 99.3 northeast of Atlanta. As of January 2016, it is still silent, with WTZA now simulcasting translator W243CE and WSRV-HD3.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WTZA
• Radio-Locator Information on WTZA
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WTZA