The owner of WREY/630 (St. Paul) and WDGY/740 (Hudson, Wis.) is buying another AM station and two FM translators and is seeking to upgrade the two FM signals.
According to an asset purchase agreement filed with the FCC on Oct. 6, the Borgen family’s WRPX Inc. will buy WIXK/1590 (New Richmond, Wis.) and two FM translators from Hmong Radio Broadcast LLC for $225,000. The FM translators are K294AM/106.7 (West St. Paul) and W277CW/103.3 (New Richmond).
The buyer has applied to make changes to one of its own FM translators and the two it’s buying:
- K294AM, which currently relays KQQL-HD4, would move its transmitter to the Wells Fargo Center in St. Paul, using 250 Watts, and switch its input to WREY.
- W277CW, which currently relays WIXK from the WIXK tower site, would move to the former KJJO-FM tower near Somerset, Wis. (which is now owned by the Washington County, Minn., government). The relocated W277CW would switch its input to WDGY and change its community of license to Hudson, using 250 Watts.
- WRPX Inc.’s W279DD/103.7 (Hudson), which currently relays WDGY from the WDGY tower site east of Hudson, would move to the WIXK tower site and continue to relay WDGY, changing its community of license to New Richmond with 250 Watts.
WREY carries a Regional Mexican format as “Radio Rey” and is also relayed on W235CT/94.9, which transmits from Minneapolis. WDGY carries Classic Hits and is also relayed on W221BS/92.1 (St. Paul) via KTMY-HD2.
Hmong Radio Broadcast’s programming continues to air on WIXK as of Oct. 9.
The purchase unites two stations with linked histories: The license that is now WREY was originally WCOW/1590 (South St. Paul), which changed its callsign to WISK in 1956 and moved to 630 in 1959, becoming KDWB a short time later. WIXK/1590 then signed on as a new station in New Richmond in 1960.
This item was posted Oct. 5 and updated Oct. 9 with details of the station sale.