| Broadcast area | Grand Rapids metropolitan area |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1480kHz |
| Branding | Smile FM |
| Programming | |
| Format | Contemporary Christian |
| Network | Smile FM |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| History | |
First air date | December 11, 1954; 70 years ago (1954-12-11) (as WMAX) |
Former call signs |
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| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 24785 |
| Class | B |
| Power |
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| Translator | 95.3 W237CZ (Grand Rapids) |
| Repeater | 90.9 WSLI-FM (Belding) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | smile.fm |
WSLI (1480kHz) is anon-commercial, listener-supportedAMradio station which serves theGrand Rapids metropolitan area. The station is licensed toKentwood, Michigan, a Grand Rapids suburb. ItsimulcastsSmile FM'scontemporary Christian musicformat withsister stationWSLI-FM 90.9MHz.
By day, WSLI is powered at 2,000watts and uses anon-directional antenna. But to protect other stations on1480 AM from interference, at night it uses adirectional antenna with a four-tower array. It is unusual in that it increases its nighttime power to 5,000 watts. Thetowers are located at Kalamazoo Avenue andM-6. Programming is also heard on 120-wattFM translatorW237CZ at 95.3 MHz in Grand Rapids.
The stationsigned on the air on December 11, 1954; 70 years ago (December 11, 1954). Itscall sign was WMAX. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was the leadingTop 40 music station in Grand Rapids. Afterward, the station played mostlymiddle of the road andadult contemporary music (and briefly used the WAFT call letters for a time in the late 1960s/early 1970s). WMAX did briefly return to a Top 40-style presentation from about 1972 to 1975 as "Good Max Music 1480".
The station dropped its music format in January 1976 for anews and talk format. WMAX NewsRadio 1480 operated as a locally produced all-news radio station from 1976 to 1984, with a staff of 11 reporters. Later, the station dropped the news/talk format forurban gospel music, thenContemporary Christian music. For many years, WMAX was the Grand Rapids radio home forDetroit Red WingsNHL hockey. WMAX changed transmitter location, adding a directional night-time signal. Itscity of license switched from Grand Rapids to Kentwood in 1984.
The station briefly went silent until July 4, 1991. OnIndependence Day, it became branded as "All-American NewsTalk 1480 WMAX". The station had its studios in the Witte Travel Building at 3250 28th Street S.E., near Shaffer Avenue. The station simulcast the cable TV network audio signal ofCNN Headline News most of the day. At the :24 and :54 marks of each hour during morning drive, noon hour and afternoon drive, WMAX would cut in with a six-minute locally produced newscast, before resuming the simulcast at the top or bottom of the hour. Dave Stanley was the program director and James Gemmell was the news director. The owners sold the station in early 1992 toGrand Valley State University.[2] It was briefly off the air until the university took over.
Grand Valley switched the call letters to WGVU on May 22, 1992. It served as a non-commercialpublic radio station and was aNational Public Radiomember station. NPR News was heard at the beginning of the hour (although the station did not air NPR long-form news programming such asMorning Edition andAll Things Considered). In 1998, Grand Valley took control ofWGVS850 AM inMuskegon and converted it into a simulcast of WGVU. Formerly, the station broadcast inAM stereo for years before converting to the newerHD Radio format.WTKG was the only other AM station in the area with an HD signal.
On August 27, 2009, WGVU and WGVS flipped to anoldies format. That was a first for a public radio station. The station'splaylist encompassed hits from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s. It featured many seldom-heard songs not typically played on commercial oldies stations, including some titles by local Michigan artists.Big band,traditional pop,adult standards andeasy listening songs from the 1940s through the 1970s were featured on Sunday mornings during theSunday Morning Standards program. Also airing on Sundays was theWest Michigan Top 40 show, which counted down the songs on a historic localrecord chart from a given date.
Victor Lundberg, a newscaster at WMAX 1480, had a Top 10 hit on theBillboard Hot 100 in 1967 with a spoken-word piece titled "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son." The WMAX call sign was originally granted for a station inAnn Arbor in 1922, and now belongs toa Catholic-formatted AM station inBay City, Michigan. In addition, 96.1 FM, licensed toHolland, Michigan, and serving the Grand Rapids market, operates asWMAX-FM, but it has no relationship to 1480 AM.
In late 2021, Grand Valley State University announced[3] that it would end the "Real Oldies" format and stop broadcasting on WGVU and WGVS, effective on January 7, 2022.WGVU-TV andWGVU-FM were not affected by the shutdown of the AM stations. The university originally planned to return the AM stations' licenses to theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) and sell their transmitter sites.[4]
On October 6, 2022,Smile FM, a network ofChristian radio stations in Michigan, announced it would buy WGVU. It filed a $60,000 deal to purchase WGVU from Grand Valley State University.[5] The purchase was consummated on December 7, 2022, at which point the station changed its call sign to WSLI.
The "Real Oldies" format continues to be available as a free internet stream through live365, Audacy and iHeart media sites as "Real Oldies Music Radio." It uses the large music library of the former WGVU and WGVS.
42°50′36.10″N85°37′7.10″W / 42.8433611°N 85.6186389°W /42.8433611; -85.6186389