WEKV (FM)

WEKV (101.9 FM) is a radio station broadcasting the K-Love radio network. Licensed to Central City, Kentucky, United States, the station serves the Central City, Owensboro, Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana areas.

WEKV
CityCentral City, Kentucky
Broadcast areaOwensboro, Kentucky
Evansville, Indiana
Hopkinsville, KY
Bowling Green
Frequency101.9 MHz
BrandingK-Love
Programming
FormatContemporary Christian
NetworkK-Love
Ownership
OwnerEducational Media Foundation
History
First air date
December 18, 1956 (1956-12-18)
Former call signs
  • WNES-FM (1955–1981)
  • WKYA (1981–1993)
  • WQXQ (1993–2020)
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID46945
ClassC1
ERP100 kW
HAAT204 metres (669 ft)
Transmitter coordinates
37°35′03″N 86°59′29″W
Links
Public license information
Profile
LMS

History

Call letters

The call letters WQXQ were previously assigned to an FM station in New York City in the 1940s. It was a sister station to WQXR (now WFME), operating on 96.3 MHz.[1]

As an FM simulcast

The station signed on the air as WNES-FM on December 18, 1956.[2] The station began as a simulcast of WNES for the FM station's first 23 years and four months on the air. It began broadcasting beautiful music as a separate station on April 23, 1980.

First Hot AC attempt and Country format (1981–1993)

On December 1, 1981, the station switched to a Hot AC format and changed the call letters to WKYA. The radio station employed local radio talent during this period and experienced a great deal of success,[3] but head-to-head competition with "Hot AC" giant WSTO (96-STO) based at that time in Owensboro took its toll on the station. So after a slow down in listenership and sales, "KY-102" ceased to exist and it changed its format to Country Music in 1989–90. From that point on, it called itself "K-Country KY-102". This was successful for a period of time until another Owensboro station, in this case being WBKR, clamped down on the market by increasing their transmitter's effective radiated power.

New Hot AC era (1993–2013)

On February 23, 1993, WKYA discontinued their country format and changed the call letters to WQXQ.[4] The WKYA calls have been reassigned to an Oldies formatted station broadcasting at 105.5 MHz in Greenville, located not too far southwest of Central City.

A new tower was built in northern Ohio County near Pleasant Ridge, and the station returned to a more "Hot AC" style format featuring a local talent in the morning and then satellite powered broadcast for the rest of the day.

After being branded as "Q-101.9 FM" for a time during the mid and late-2000s, the branding changed to "Q-102" around 2011, and the format was changed to a CHR/Top 40 format, which mostly included new music.

Sports format (2013–2020)

In October 2013, WQXQ switched to a sports radio format after becoming an affiliate of Fox Sports Radio.

Throughout its ownership with Radio Active, the station maintained studios in the same Central City building in which it had been located since signing on, shared with the Leader-News weekly newspaper on Everly Brothers Boulevard.

Sale to Educational Media Foundation

Radio Active Media sold WQXQ to Educational Media Foundation for $617,000 effective September 25, 2020.[5] The call letters were changed to WEKV on September 29, 2020. The change was unpopular with some of the former WQXQ listening audience.[6]

Coverage area

With a 100,000 watt signal from a tower 669 feet in height above average terrain, the station can be heard about 80 miles away in every direction from the tower site in northern Ohio County. The coverage area includes much of the Pennyrile region of western and west-central Kentucky, and much of southern Indiana. The signal reaches several areas within the signal range, including all three major cities in the Evansville Tri-state area, and can reach as far east as the Elizabethtown/Fort Knox and the Cave City and Mammoth Cave National Park areas, and some far western suburbs of Louisville. It can also reach as far south as Bowling Green, Springfield, Tennessee and the northern suburbs of Clarksville, Tennessee, as far north as an area halfway between Evansville and Bloomington, Indiana, and as far west as Gallatin and Hardin Counties in Illinois and Crittenden County, Kentucky.[7] WEKV has a 100,000 watt signal coverage in the Owensboro area.

References
  1. "WQXQ on Fulltime". (PDF). Broadcasting. July 21, 1947. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  2. 1965 Broadcasting Yearbook, page B-63
  3. 1984 Broadcasting Yearbook, page B-102
  4. "WEKV Call Sign History". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
  5. Venta, Lance (July 24, 2020). "Station Sales Week Of 7/24: EMF Expands In Central Kentucky". RadioInsight. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
  6. https://streema.com/radios/WQXQ
  7. http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WEKV-FM
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