WACS-TV

WACS-TV
Dawson/Americus, Georgia
Branding GPB
Slogan Bringing You the Best
Channels Digital: 8 (VHF)
Subchannels

25.1 - GPB/PBS HD (1080i)
25.2 - GPB Create TV (480i)

25.3 - GPB Knowledge (480i)
Owner Georgia Public Broadcasting
(Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission)
First air date March 6, 1967
Call letters' meaning AmeriCuS
Former channel number(s) Analog:
25 (1967-2009)
Former affiliations NET (1967-1970)
Transmitter power 4.7 kW
Height 333 metres (1,093 ft)
Facility ID 23930
Transmitter coordinates 31°56′12.3″N 84°33′13″W / 31.936750°N 84.55361°W
Website www.gpb.org

WACS-TV, part of the GPB network, is Georgia's ninth public television station, and primarily serves the southern part of the Columbus market, including Dawson and Americus. WACS' transmitter is located north of Parrott, Georgia. The station's signal travels in about a 40-mile (64-km) radius from the transmitter site and also reaches parts of southeastern Alabama.

Viewers in Columbus itself are well within the WACS coverage area, even though their GPB station of record is WJSP-TV, whose fringes just barely reach the city. It also serves Albany, Georgia, though that city's GPB station of record is Pelham's WABW-TV, channel 14. All are satellites of Athens/Atlanta's WGTV, the network's flagship station. They simulcast an identical broadcast schedule with no local content.

WACS-TV channel 25 signed on the air on March 6, 1967. Its digital signal is permanently on channel 8 with roughly the same coverage.

Digital television

WACS-TV broadcasts the following digital subchannels:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming
25.1 1080i 16:9 Main GPB programming / PBS
25.2 480i 4:3 Create TV
25.3 4:3 GPB Knowledge

Tower destruction

In March 2007, the station's broadcast tower was destroyed by one of several tornadoes which struck the region during a major outbreak on March 1. The same tornado, rated an EF3, went on to cause serious destruction in Americus. Cable TV viewers continued to receive GPB directly from satellite, or over-the-air via neighboring GPB stations WJSP or WABW, while GPB worked to replace the tower and the transmitter building it partly fell on. This was finally completed in early May 2008, although to avoid losing the station's license (due to a one-year statutory requirement for all off-air stations enacted by Congress, and therefore not correctable by the Federal Communications Commission), GPB engineers borrowed the transmitter from W22AC in Hartwell to get WACS back on the air before the end of February.

References

    External links