WHLX
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| City | Marine City, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Branding | Rock 105.5 |
| Slogan | Port Huron's Alternative |
| Frequency | 1590 kHz |
| First air date | December 10, 1951 |
| Format | Active rock |
| Power | 1,000 watts (daytime) 102 watts (nighttime) |
| Class | D |
| Facility ID | 56266 |
| Callsign meaning | Disambiguation of WHLS |
| Former callsigns | WHYT (11/17/97-9/19/00) WIFN (6/2/93-11/17/97) WSMA (1967-6/2/93) WDOG (1954-67) WSDC (1950-54) |
| Affiliations | Michigan IMG Sports Network |
| Owner | Radio First |
| Website | whls.net |
WHLX is an American radio station, licensed to Marine City, Michigan at 1590 kHz on the AM dial, with a power output of 1,000 watts day, 102 watts night. Since 2000 WHLX has been a simulcast of 1450 WHLS in Port Huron.
The station broadcasts an active rock format branded as Rock 105.5, "Port Huron's Alternative". Rock 105.5 competes with CHKS-FM 106.3 MHz in Sarnia, Ontario.
The station started as WSDC in 1951, then WDOG and later became WSMA with country music.
WHLX went on the air on December 10, 1951 with the call letters WSDC, operating from its transmitter facility at 5300 Marine City Highway, on the outskirts of Marine City. Doing business as Radio St. Clair, Inc., Jerry Coughlin served as the station's first president and general manager.
By 1954, Coughlin had turned the duties of general manager to sales director John Bell and renamed the station WDOG. Fred Cale assumed sales and management duties by 1960.
In February 1967, Coughlin sold WDOG to Sommerville Broadcasting Company, owned by Richard S. Sommerville. He renamed the station WSMA, and adopted a country music format. It maintained this format and call sign for the next 26 years.
A disadvantage that the station had for much of its history was its geographic separation from more profitable markets. Located about 12 miles from any kind of urban sprawl, it had difficulty attaching itself to another community for more profit potential, as retail business in tiny Marine City was unable to provide a steady source of revenue, even during AM's halcyon years. For a time, WSMA maintained a small sales office in Port Huron, across the street from competitors WHLS and WSAQ. Despite the challenges, WSMA produced a modest profit during its early years.
The Port Huron office closed when the station began to fail in the late 1980s, not long after coming under the control of a new owner.
Those failures arose out of an overall lack of dependability of the station, often shutting down operations at sunset (even after being granted nighttime power authorization), and sometimes not going on air at all during holidays and some weekends.
On May 17, 1987, Richard S. Sommerville, who by this time owned WCEN-AM/FM in Mount Pleasant, sold WSMA to Frink, Inc., under a land contract agreement to pay for the station in monthly installments of $1,845. However, in a letter to the FCC dated November 7, 1990, Washington attorney Earl Stanley stated that Sommerville resumed control of WSMA after Frink Inc. failed to meet its financial obligations, prompting a foreclosure civil action in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County.
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Wikipedia