New Antenna Installed by Helicopter at WHIZ Media Group

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – WHIZ Media Group experienced a historic
afternoon as crews worked to install a new television antenna. A
helicopter was utilized to remove the previous antenna and replace it
with new equipment. Hank Littick, President of WHIZ Media Group, says
over the air viewers will experience some changes in the coming
weeks.

“The helicopter is
going to lift off our current antenna—which is for channel 40—and
then they’re going to pick up the new antenna and place that on the
top of the tower. Now, what it means to viewers is most importantly
and impactful is that they will need to re-scan their TV once we make
this new antenna live. We’ll be on an interim antenna for a short
period of time and then we will go live on the channel 30 antenna.”

While over the air
viewers can expect some challenges as new equipment is activated,
satellite and cable viewers will not notice much of a change.

“If you are being
provided service and our channel through a you know—Spectrum or
DirecTV—you can still get us the same way you always have. You
won’t even notice a change, most likely. But, it’s just an
exciting day with having the helicopter here on site and our engineer
team has done a fantastic job getting this all coordinated.”

Oftentimes,
television and radio stations make equipment upgrades and changes as
a result of FCC mandates based upon the actions of Congress. The last
major project in Zanesville was completed when WHIZ Media Group made
the jump to digital broadcast.

“When we did the
initial transition to digital television—high definition
television—there used to be another tower that was about 75 feet
southwest of the existing tower. So, that was an even bigger project
back then; and it involved building an entire new tower then changing
the antenna. We had to build a new facility to house our transmitter
because there was no room in any of the existing facilities that we
had. So, that was a very large undertaking—took a long time.”

Employees took time
to commemorate the occasion by signing their names on the bottom of
the new antenna, which now resides on top of he broadcast tower. Over
the air viewers are being advised to re-scan their televisions in the
coming weeks.