If you’re out tooling around the Lowcountry in your car, you might want to consider turning that dial (or more likely pressing that button) and tuning in to WRHG, 102.9 FM. The station, which has been up and running for about a year and a half, plays what station owner and programmer Bruce Roberts refers to as “positive” music in the old-school Americana tradition.
That means listeners might hear everything from singer-songwriters and roots-rock artists to country storytellers, contemporary folk acts and local musicians who don’t always get a spot on traditional commercial radio. It’s a format built around music that feels lived-in rather than manufactured — artists like Molly Tuttle, Lainey Wilson, Kip Moore, and Mumford and Sons.
And if you like the occasional oldie, Roberts slips in acoustic mood-lifters like “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts.
What’s more, Roberts includes local artists in the mix. Settle in for a long-term listen to WRHG and you’ll probably hear Danielle Howle, Jump Little Children or the Blue Dogs, along with nationally known South Carolina acts like Edwin McCain and NeedToBreathe.
But WRHG 102.9, which also streams through homegrownradio.org and the Live365 app, isn’t just another station filling a frequency on the FM dial.
It’s the culmination of a decades-long career in audio for Roberts, who built the station from his home studio after spending years behind the scenes in radio, recording and production.
What started as a digital experiment eventually grew into a Lowcountry FM signal — a locally programmed station with the kind of personal touch that has become increasingly rare in an era of corporate playlists and automated programming.
The recording studio is in West Ashley while the transmitting tower is on Leeds Ave. in North Charleston. The car-radio broadcast range is about 15 miles, reaching Johns Island, West Ashley, downtown Charleston and James Island.
Roberts conceived the idea with another radio veteran, the late T.J. Phillips. Phillips co-hosted the “T.J. and Jessica Morning Show” on 92.5 Kickin’ Country for nearly a decade and brought more than 30 years of radio experience to the project.
“I’d been in radio for 50 years,” Roberts said in a recent interview with the Charleston City Paper. “And for the last 10 or 12 years, I’d worked with T.J. Phillips at country radio. T.J. had a long background of programming and a love for Americana music. So he and I started this thing initially as just an online-only station.”
Roberts added that when the new station started, Phillips was still working at the country station.“I’d just retired, and we would talk about the music, and he would give me songs to add to the station, known at the time simply as HomeGrown Radio.”
Together, the two men created something that felt less like a traditional radio venture and more like a carefully curated extension of the Lowcountry’s music community — a place where familiar voices, emerging artists and timeless songwriting could share the same frequency.
And speaking of frequencies, Home Grown Radio acquired one of its own in 2025. But it was a bittersweet milestone because that year Phillips died unexpectedly in his sleep at age 66.
Roberts said the pair had already reached one of their biggest goals before Phillips’ death.
“We actually got a radio frequency and put it on the air a few months before he passed away,” Roberts said. “So he got to experience all that. And I’ve just continued to grow it.”
So how did Home Grown Radio end up as WRHG on 102.9?
“I kind of lucked up because a local high school had this frequency,” Roberts said. “Then the school decided that it didn’t want the station anymore; they wanted to just do online only. So we were able to buy the channel from them and, since engineering is in my background, I was able to put all the pieces together.”
“We’re low-power,” Roberts added with a laugh, “but we’re on the air.”
As one might expect from what is essentially a one-man station, the format reflects many of Roberts’ own tastes. But introducing listeners to local artists working in the Americana tradition is what excites him most.
“A lot of them are singer-songwriters,” he said. “T.J. was also a singer-songwriter, and I have a recording studio, so we had an immediate pool of people to go for initially. Now I’m starting to get more people sending their songs to our email, radio@homegrownradio.org.”
Regardless of the material, Roberts keeps things bright on the station, both out of personal preference and as a tribute to his late friend.
“We try to have positive songs with a message,” he said. “The whole singer-songwriter experience is that they want to tell a story. So most of the songs we’re going for are story songs. T.J. loved those kinds of songs, and I hope that his spirit will be a part of this forever.”
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