[2] Its programming is also simulcasted on FM Translator W224DT, licensed to Port Huron, Michigan at 92.7 MHz, with an effective radiated power of 125 watts.

The year after that, the land on which to build the transmitter facility along Marine City highway was selected, and the license was amended to reflect a power increase from 500 to 1,000 watts, and to adopt a two-tower directional antenna pattern.

Located about 12 miles from any kind of urban sprawl, it had difficulty attaching itself to another community for more profit potential, as retail business in tiny Marine City was unable to provide a steady source of revenue, even during AM's halcyon years.

Those failures arose out of an overall lack of dependability of the station, often shutting down operations at sunset (even after being granted nighttime power authorization), and sometimes not going on air at all during holidays and some weekends.

On May 17, 1987, Richard S. Sommerville, who by this time owned WCEN-AM-FM in Mount Pleasant, sold WSMA to Frink, Inc., under a land contract agreement to pay for the station in monthly installments of $1,845.

However, in a letter to the FCC dated November 7, 1990, Washington attorney Earl Stanley stated that Sommerville resumed control of WSMA after Frink Inc. failed to meet its financial obligations, prompting a foreclosure civil action in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County.

Frink was required to pay more than $30,000 in unpaid promissory note payments and real estate taxes, according to court papers, putting its total amount owed to more than $150,000.

Coincidentally, Barr's father William was the former owner of WATC AM 900 & WZXM FM 95.3 (now 101.5 WMJZ) in Gaylord, 220 miles north of Detroit, before selling it in 1986.

Barr/Schremp Communications changed the station's call letters to WIFN, and began a gradual phase-out of the country music format in favor of personality talk.

Under the new format, the station bore such talents such as G. Gordon Liddy, Larry King, Chuck Harder and Sports Byline USA.

In 1997 Barr sold the station to Hanson Communications, then-licensee of WPHM and WBTI in Port Huron, one of WIFN's longtime competitors.

Given multiple job offers after the sale, Barr then moved north to Traverse City, where he assumed a promotions and marketing role with country music powerhouse WTCM.

WHLX has a two-tower directional pattern pointed towards the north from a transmitter site located along Marine City Highway.