Six mornings per week, WDXD 101.9 radio station manager and program director Alan McCall is up at 6 am, taking care of some household chores before taking on another day of broadcasting beginning at 7 am.
From a small studio housed in an old construction site trailer, the sounds of classic and traditional country music fill the airwaves of 101.9.
WDXD is a class of station known as “low power FM, ” or LPFM for short. These stations were created to allow broadcasters to super serve their local communities.
McCall loves doing radio, and says it is the one job he wanted to do since his teen years. Tommy Dee hired him at WTAL 1450 in 1979 for his first radio gig. He has been involved in media, including writing for Florida State University Media Relations, freelance writing and media production, in some
fashion ever since.
He also worked for many years in Christian radio at WCVC 1330 under two different owners- the Crews family out of Spartanburg SC, and later Wendell Borrink from Chicago.
In 2013, consulting engineer Leo Ashcraft told him about a possible LPFM station availability. With Ashcraft’s engineering help, an application to build a new station was filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The permit was granted in early 2014. And with that, WDXD was created.
It took 16 months to build the station. WDXD owns its own tower – the upfront costs were higher, but the issues of landlords, increasing tower rent issues, and such were eliminated.
Program tests began in the summer of 2015. The FCC subsequently granted the license to broadcast, and WDXD-LP officially began broadcasting as a legally licensed facility.
From the start, WDXD has offered a format that is heavily country. However, some crossover hits and an occasional light pop hit are also aired. McCall says he tries to keep the music as unduplicated by other local stations as possible.
WDXD’s programming all originates from the construction site trailer studios. No networks or satellite feeds are used. McCall says he intentionally strives to make WDXD a true hometown community station.
Trooper Jim Hawkins , formerly with Monte Bitner’s WGWD, has Bluegrass Country running in re-airs on Saturday evenings on WDXD.
Bitner, who passed in 2018, and McCall had known each other through the radio business, since the mid 1990s. Bitner had a hope that somehow, the country format of WGWD could continue somehow. In 2017 he made his country music library available to WDXD. That music – along with other collections from other stations and friends – continues to the present day.
Needing more space, McCall purchased a used modular building to create a bigger studio and office area for WDXD. The building was formerly a truck and tractor parts shop in South Georgia.
When asked why he chose a return to radio after retiring from WCVC, McCall said, “I missed the day to day of radio. I think I needed that sense of purpose, and bringing the companionship that radio CAN offer, back to people that felt that most stations no longer offered.
It’s just something that is enjoyable for me. I do take it seriously, and provide traffic, weather, and other information to the public both on air and through our social media pages.”
While acknowledging that the events of 2020 have slowed down the renovation’s progress, McCall says work will continue as various aspects of the project are funded or provided for.