City Cartersville, Georgia Slogan Praise FM Format Religious radio | Broadcast area Northwest Georgia Frequency 91.7 MHz ERP 7,300 watts | |
WCCV FM 91.7 ("Praise FM") is a radio station licensed to serve the city of Cartersville, Georgia. It is owned by and is the flagship station of Immanuel Broadcasting Network, also based in Cartersville. The station plays Christian music.
The station transmits from Mullinax Mountain, between Euharlee and Wax, Georgia, due west of Cartersville and southeast of Rome (which is slightly closer), the same location for which WTSH-FM 107.1 applied to move to in early May 2012. Although very close to WCLK FM 91.9 in Atlanta, it can still be heard in parts of northwest and south metro Atlanta via broadcast translators.
WCCV is also simulcast on sister station WJCK FM 88.3, licensed to Piedmont, Alabama. That station had no translators assigned to it until 2010, when W257CM FM 99.3 was licensed to the northeast of Talladega, Alabama. That translator is now assigned to WHPH FM 97.7 in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Since W257CM is still listed on the IBN website, but WHPH is not, it is unclear what it is currently broadcasting.
WCCV also now airs in metro Atlanta on WUBL FM 94.9, HD Radio channel 2. It was stated in on-air announcements on WCCV in mid June 2011 that this was "at no cost to the ministry". This simulcast is also now the official source for two of its translator stations: W265AV and W221CG.
In the Chattanooga metropolitan area, the same is also true for WKXJ FM 103.7 HD2 in Walden, Tennessee, to which 100-watt W260AJ 99.9 in Ringgold, Georgia is now assigned.
Translators
In addition to the suburban stations in Woodstock and Morrow, Canton is also considered part of exurban metro Atlanta, though "North Canton" is not an official placename. The others are in northwest Georgia, or just beyond. Rossville is a suburb of Chattanooga, their city limits touching at the state line.
In September 2011, the FCC changed the callsign of W265BD back to its original callsign of W265AV, which it had before a change to 100.3 in 1997. In 2002, it was forced to change back to 100.9 when full-power 100.5 was moved in from Alabama. This change apparently occurred when the station received its broadcast license to cover a power increase to 250 watts, which now sends the station as far as Canton, Acworth, Vinings, Alpharetta, and Dunwoody according to official FCC data plotted on Google Maps.
W265AV 100.9 in Woodstock is still on Sweat Mountain, but had been assigned to retransmit WSB-FM 98.5, and in November 2010 was granted a construction permit to go from 7 to 250 watts at the same location and slightly lower height. This indicated it might be used to circumvent FCC caps on excessive concentration of media ownership by Cox Radio in the Atlanta media market, ostensibly rebroadcasting a digital-only channel from B98.5 FM. (The same occurred with unrelated W229AG 93.7, also non-commercial and on Sweat Mountain, and sold to a commercial radio company; other local "translators" have done the same.) As of December 2011 however, it is still broadcasting WCCV, and is now officially assigned to retransmit WUBL.
WUBL is also listed as the primary station for W221CG 92.1 "Kennesaw" (actually near Hiram/Dallas), which is also owned by Immanuel, and had a permit to move to north of Lithia Springs (its new city of license) at a power of 120 watts on 92.5, which caused its callsign to change to W223BP once licensed in March 2012.
Also recently, Immanuel's W222AF 92.3 in Marietta was assigned to WGST AM 640, with a permit granted in April 2011 to go from 10 to 15 watts, and move from the Cobb EMC radio tower in Elizabeth southeastward to between Marietta and Smyrna, in the Laurel Valley apartments along Interstate 75 south of Delk Road. On the weekend of June 19, the station actually made the programming change from WCCV to WGST. Prior to this, an hourly on-air announcement stated that the station would be taken off-air permanently, and that the Woodstock station's power would be raised as a replacement. W222AF was then off the air, and it had a permit to move to the North Druid Hills tower site. It began rebroadcasting WGST AM 640 via WUBL's HD-R channel 3 (now 24/7 Comedy), but is still owned by IBN. It received a license to cover in early December 2011 after going on at reduced power the previous month, but often still gets heavy RF interference (or is even completely overtaken at night) to the north and west of the city from WDEF-FM 92.3 Chattanooga. This includes Marietta, which remains its city of license.
W241AF 96.1 (250 watts) in Rossville, Georgia is also owned by Immanuel, but is assigned to retransmit commercial station WUSY 100.7 Chattanooga. Like W222AF in the Atlanta area, it is using the same legal fiction, making it "96.1 the Beat" instead of actually rebroadcasting "U.S. 101".
W260AJ 99.9 (100 watts) in Ringgold, Georgia is now officially assigned to WKXJ FM 103.7 Walden, Tennessee (both are in the Chattanooga metropolitan area, as is Rossville), but that station's HD2 channel carries WCCV's simulcast.