From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WMQF is a television station in the Marquette market, providing Fox and My Network TV programming to the central Upper Peninsula.
Other than the transmitter itself, WMQF has no physical presence in the region -- it's owned and operated by Equity Media Holdings, who operates all its stations via satellite from Little Rock, Arkansas. As a result, the signal and picture quality on channel 19 was sub-par for the first few months, and most cable systems in the region took the signal directly off the satellite. To this day, it is still challenging to receive a signal over the air due to its relatively weak 500,000-watt ERP. Some viewers claim that the signal is snowy at best even in areas close to the transmitter.
Prior to WMQF's sign-on in 2003, Fox programming was seen on cable from either Cadillac's WFQX and/or Green Bay's WLUK (as of 2008, WLUK is still seen in full on Charter Cable in Marquette and Escanaba). Marquette's WLUC also had secondary relations with Fox in the early-1990s. UPN never got full coverage in the UP, but it was seen in the Crystal Falls area on WUPT-CA channel 49, later channel 25. WUPT folded in 2003 after losing the UPN affiliation to WMQF.
In the fall of 2006, WMQF added MyNetworkTV programming.
[edit] Digital television
Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [1], the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on or before February 17, 2009, which is the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, WMQF will be required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").
[edit] External links
