WSTR (FM) - Broadcast Facilities

Broadcast Facilities

WSTR FM shares a tower with WPBA TV 30, and in fact shares the same antenna with WSB-FM 98.5 and WVEE FM 103.3. The three radio stations' transmitters are diplexed together, so that they all feed to the radio antenna instead of into each other.

WSTR broadcasts in HD Radio. 94.1 HD-2 currently carries a simulcast of WQXI (AM), while 94.1 HD-3 currently carries a mainstream urban format as "Streetz 94.5". It formerly carried a simulcast of WQXI's sports talk format on their HD-3 channel. WSTR HD-3 is given in the hourly station ID of W233BF FM 94.5, licensed to serve the eastern exurb of Social Circle. Although that station is licenseing as a "broadcast translator" (a service intended to retransmit analog FM stations to distant areas), it is operating independently as "Streetz", under an FCC legal fiction that allows such stations to transmit original programming if it is also simulcast on another station's HD Radio digital subchannel. Since legitimately licensed noncommercial LPFM stations cannot do any of these things (have multiple stations, operate commercially, use higher powers and unlimited heights, or afford to rent an "HD" channel or AM station) despite being in the same FCC class D, no community radio stations have gone on-air in or immediately around the city since the 1980s, and two have been forced off-air in the 2000s.

W233BF is owned by Edgewater Broadcasting, which has been highly involved in the "flipping" of translator stations and licenses for profit. Originally applied-for in 2003 (in what was called the "Great Translator Invasion" by some), the station finally went on the air in July 2007, and immediately requested permission to change to 105.3, becoming W287BI. Due to RF interference from full-power WBZY FM 105.3, it requested to go back to 94.5 in July 2010, regaining its old frequency (and therefore callsign) by December that year. In November however, it had already applied to move closer to Atlanta, where it is currently located north of Conyers, transmitting 122 watts at 313 meters (1,027 ft) HAAT. In late March 2012, it applied to move to the WHSG-TV 63.x (originally WUPA TV 69) tower in the Inman Park neighborhood east of downtown Atlanta, transmitting 250 watts at 325 meters (1,066 ft), except to the north and northwest, where is has a broad and flat null to protect the new WIPK FM 94.5 in northwest Georgia.