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WQEN (103.7 FM broadcasting, "103.7 the Q") is a commercial radio radio station licensed to Trussville, Alabama, and serving the Birmingham metropolitan area. It airs a Top 40--CHR radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. It carries the nationally syndicated midday show On Air with Ryan Seacrest. Studios and offices are at Beacon Ridge Tower on First Avenue South in Birmingham.
WQEN is a Class C1 station. It has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000 , the maximum for most FM stations. The transmitter is off Venice Road on the west end of the Red Mountain range. Radio-Locator.com/WQEN WQEN broadcasts using HD Radio technology. Its HD2 subchannel carries an urban contemporary format known as "The Beat." That feeds FM translator W276BQ at 103.1 Hertz.
WLJM was the sister station to WJBY 930 AM (now WGAD). WLJM had a beautiful music format, playing quarter-hour sweeps of soft, instrumental music with limited commercials and chatter. It was mostly automated.
By 1976, the transmitter for WQEN was moved to Steele, some south of Gadsden. The power of its signal was increased to 100,000 watts. This enabled the station to cover not just the Gadsden area but many parts of the Birmingham metropolitan area. During this time, WQEN had several monikers: "Super Q104, WQEN", "SuperHot Q104", and "Q104 WQEN, The Southern Super Giant". Except for a brief period in the late 1980s when the station was known as "103.7 QFM", the station was called "Q104" for over 20 years.
In 1998, WQEN began broadcasting from a tower near Springville, enabling its signal to cover the entire Birmingham market. It also moved its studios into Birmingham. The station was rebranded under the "103.7 The Q" moniker in June. At about the same time that the station focused on the Birmingham market, it began simulcasting on WQEM (101.5 FM), licensed to Columbiana. The simulcast continued until 2002, when WQEM was sold to Glen Iris Baptist School in Birmingham, a Christian radio organization that also owns WGIB.
WQEN was the first Top 40 station in the Birmingham market since WJOX-FM dropped the format in 1994. Ironically, a second station in the market adopted the same format a few months later when WPYA, known on the air as Hot 97.3, signed on. That station changed formats in 2000. The WQEN disc jockey line-up featured Rick and Bubba in the mornings, Scott Bohannon (formerly of WJOX-FM) in middays, and Luka (formerly of WUHT) in the afternoons.
In 2005, WQEN was one of several stations in north Alabama and southern Tennessee that changed either their city of license, broadcast frequency, or both. As a result, WQEN, is now licensed to Trussville rather than Gadsden. It began broadcasting from Red Mountain in Birmingham, greatly improving its signal in Jefferson County and Shelby County.
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