WCAZ (1510 kHz) is a

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...

formatted AM

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

, licensed to

Carthage, Illinois Carthage is a city and the county seat of Hancock County, Illinois, United States. The population was 2,490 as of the 2020 census, Carthage is best known for being the site of the 1844 death of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint mov ...

. Because the station shares the same frequency as clear-channel station

WLAC WLAC (1510 AM) – branded ''Talkradio 98.3 & 1510'' – is a commercial talk radio radio station licensed to serve Nashville, Tennessee. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station covers the Nashville metropolitan area. The WLAC studios are located ...

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

, WCAZ broadcasts only during the daytime. However, its FM translator, W256DZ on 99.1 MHz, also provides nighttime operation.

History

Establishment in Macomb

This station was first licensed in 1947, as WKAI in

Macomb, Illinois Macomb is a city in and the county seat of McDonough County, Illinois, United States. It is situated in western Illinois, southwest of Galesburg. The city is about southwest of Peoria and south of the Quad Cities. A special census held in ...

. However, the station has traditionally traced its history to the original WCAZ, which was first licensed in Carthage in 1922. On June 1, 1984, WKAI's call letters were changed to WLRB."Call Sign History"
(Facility ID Number: 60017), FCC.gov. For a time, WLRB carried the

Music of Your Life Music of Your Life is an American syndicated music radio format featuring adult standards music. First created by recording executive Al Ham in 1978, the format achieved popularity in the 1980s among AM radio stations in the United States and C ...

radio network, but

Jones Radio Networks Jones Radio Networks & Jones Media Group were branches of Jones International before being sold to Triton Media Group. JRN and JMN provide local radio stations with satellite-delivered formats. They also offer other services to local radio such ...

divested it in favor of its own

Jones Standards Jones Standards was a short-lived 24-hour music format that was produced by Jones Radio Networks. Its playlist is composed of mostly adult standards from artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Johnny Mathis, Rod Stewart and a dozen more art ...

format. As

Dial Global Westwood One is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1978. The company ...

acquired Jones, the "Jones Standards" network was dissolved and "

America's Best Music America's Best Music is the on-air branding of a soft oldies and adult standards 24-hour radio network, formerly known as AM Only. The service is syndicated by Westwood One, a subsidiary of Cumulus Media. It was one of the original Transtar R ...

" took its place. WLRB later switched to

talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

programming. WLRB was owned by Prairie Radio Communications/WPW Broadcasting, Inc. until January 2009, when it was bought by Nancy Foster's Colchester Radio, Inc. to become part of Prestige Communications. Effective November 30, 2015, WLRB and five sister stations were sold to Fletcher Ford's Virden Broadcasting Corporation at a purchase price of $725,000. The station changed its call sign to WYEC on August 31, 2016.

Move to Carthage as WCAZ

On April 21, 2017, the license and call letters of the original WCAZ (AM 990) in Carthage were cancelled and the station deleted by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

, due to an unpaid fine, that had been levied a decade earlier for failure to file a timely license renewal application. This station continued to make regular broadcasts as "WCAZ", thus technically becoming an unlicensed

pirate radio Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially ...

station, until it ended operations on December 31, 2017. A group effort was organized to restore a local station in Carthage. Effective September 24, 2018, WYEC and its translator W226CH were sold by Virden Broadcasting to Hancock County Broadcasting, LLC for $75,000. The new owners changed the station's call sign to WCAZ, and flipped the format from talk to full-service classic country on the same day. The station was relocated to Carthage, with its daytime power of 1,000 watts reduced to 330 watts, and the critical hours operation at 250 watts eliminated. Translator W226CH was also moved to Carthage, and in 2020 transferred to 99.1 MHz, resulting in a call sign change to W256DZ. In May 2022, this new WCAZ held a 100-year anniversary celebration, tracing its history back to the May 15, 1922, initial license date of the original WCAZ."WCAZ to celebrate 100 years on May 14"
''Hancock County (Illinois) Journal-Pilot'', May 3, 2022.

References

External links

*
FCC History Cards for WCAZ
(covering 1946-1980 as WKAI) *
W256DZ
on Radio-Locator {{coord, 40, 24, 31, N, 91, 10, 13, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title CAZ (AM) Radio stations established in 1947 1947 establishments in Illinois CAZ Country radio stations in the United States