WULM

WULM "Radio Maria" 1600 AM (for "Under (Our) Lady's Mantle") is an American non-commercial AM radio station licensed in Springfield, Ohio serving the Springfield and Dayton area with Catholic inspirational programming. It operates at 1600 kHz with a power output of 1,000 watts daytime and with a reduced power of 34 watts nighttime. It is a repeater of KJMJ 580 kHz in Alexandria, Louisiana, the originating English-language station of Radio Maria USA.

History

WULM's history dates back to 1946 when it was founded as commercial daytime station WJEL. At the time of its founding, the station was licensed in nearby Dayton, Ohio. Country music singer Donnie Bowser (Bowshier), a Springfield resident performed frequently on WJEL's live Saturday night program. In 1954, the station was moved to Springfield and was given new call letters: WBLY, which previously had been used by the present-day WIMA in Lima, Ohio. The BLY in WBLY stood for Bailey, Lucas and Yontz. The Initials of the Three principal owners. The stations move was nearly coincidental with the move of Springfield station WWSO to Dayton, where it became WAVI (now known as the AM incarnation of WDAO formerly at 107.7 FM). WBLY's studios were first located in the Chamber of Commerce building at the corner of Spring and High streets in the early 1950s then moving to a more modern facility at 1711 West Main Street along with sister WBLY-FM which would later become WAZU (formerly WJEM, the FM sister to the original WJEL.)