WHLC FM 104.5 is a radio station covering a small area where Georgia and the

Carolinas The Carolinas are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina, considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia to the southwest. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east. Combining Nort ...

meet. Owned by Charisma Radio Corp. (Wanda and Chuck Cooper) and based in Highlands, North Carolina (also its city of license), its studios are just north of the historic downtown on the Cashiers Road ( U.S. 64). The transmitter is nearby, and operates at 460 watts effective radiated power. The station went on the air in mid-1993. According to FCC maps, WHLC covers the southwestern half of Macon County (including Franklin), the southern half of Jackson County (including Cashiers) to the east, the southwestern corner of Transylvania County (as far as

Lake Toxaway Lake Toxaway is the largest privately held lake in North Carolina. The lake, developed by the Lake Toxaway Company, is man-made and covers , and the shoreline is . Water sources for the lake include multiple free-flowing mountain streams wit ...

) further east, the far northwestern tip of South Carolina (as far south as Walhalla) to the south and southeast, and the eastern half of Rabun County, Georgia (out to Clayton) to the southwest.

According to the station's own map, coverage extends much further to the south and southeast, covering the greater Greenville, SC, Greenville area., WHLC plays easy listening music dating back to the 1950s, including instrumental versions of

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

tunes, with a target audience of over-35 listeners. It is the only full-service station licensed to Highlands, although the town's location on a high plateau allows people to receive other stations from Asheville, and as far away as northeastern metro Atlanta. Also licensed to Highlands is

W277CU WCQS (88.1 FM) is the flagship National Public Radio member station for Asheville, North Carolina and Western North Carolina. The station is owned by Western North Carolina Public Radio, Inc. and broadcasts a mix of NPR and BBC World Service ...

, which retransmits WFQS from Western North Carolina Public Radio in Asheville.

Translators

, WHLC has one broadcast translator station on air, also located in Highlands. The initial permit (November 1996) had callsign W279AH on 103.7, then W277AL on 103.3 (May 2001), from a different location than the main station on the southwest edge of the Highlands city limit. It obtained a

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

at the same location to change to 95.7, lower the antenna by about 10 meters, and increase to 75 watts. (This superseded an application to stay at the original height but at 25 watts.) The new callsign, W239AN, was issued in July 2007. It then became W293BX on 106.5, granted in late 2011 and licensed in early 2012 (trading channels with W239CB on 95.7 in nearby Cashiers). It is unclear why this station is necessary or even useful, since it is now on the same tower as the main station. In 2003, Charisma also made applications for 106.5 in Cashiers, 97.1 in

, 99.1 in Franklin, and 105.3 in "Scaly" (Scaly Mountain) in North Carolina, and for 94.9 in

Easley Easley may refer to: Places in the United States * Easley, Alabama, in Blount County, Alabama * Easley, Iowa * Easley, Missouri, in Boone County, Missouri * Easley, South Carolina, in Pickens Counties Persons *Easley (name) Other uses * ...

and 101.7 in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...

. The FCC took a decade to approve these, with Scaly and Cashiers approved in May 2013, and Toxaway and Franklin in early January 2014. Prior to FCC approval, the applications for the Highlands and Cashiers stations swapped frequencies, while Franklin was amended to go down by one channel. The applications for the two stations in South Carolina were never approved.

References

External links

*{{FM station data, 10351, WHLC HLC HLC Easy listening radio stations