WEDU

WEDU
Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida
United States
City of license Tampa, Florida
Branding WEDU
Slogan West Central Florida's PBS Station
Channels Digital: 13 (VHF)
Virtual: 3 (PSIP)
Affiliations PBS
Owner Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting, Inc.
First air date October 17, 1958
Call letters' meaning EDUcation
Former channel number(s) Analog:
3 (VHF, 1958–2009)
Digital: 54 (UHF, –2009)
Former affiliations NET (1958–1970)
Transmitter power 25 kW
Height 470.9 m
Facility ID 21808
Transmitter coordinates 27°50′51.5″N 82°15′49.4″W / 27.847639°N 82.263722°W
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.wedu.org

WEDU, virtual channel 3 (VHF digital channel 13), is a PBS member television station located in Tampa, Florida, United States and also serving the nearby city of St. Petersburg. The station is Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting. WEDU maintains studio facilities located on North Boulevard in Tampa, and its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida. WEDU is one of two PBS stations in the Tampa Bay market (the other being WUSF-TV, channel 16), and the only one to carry PBS's main programming schedule.

The station first signed on the air on October 17, 1958. For many years, WEDU has been one of the highest-rated stations in the PBS system. At one point, it was the third most-watched PBS member station in the country.[1][2]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[3]
3.1 720p 16:9 WEDU HD Main WEDU programming / PBS
3.2 480i 4:3 V-me V-me
3.3 World - World (7 a.m.-7 p.m.[4])
The Florida Channel (7 p.m.-7 a.m.[5])
3.4 WEDU+ PBS+

Analog-to-digital conversion

WEDU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 3, on February 17, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television (which Congress had moved the previous month to June 12).[6][7] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 54, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to VHF channel 13 on June 12, 2009, after Fox owned-and-operated station WTVT vacated the channel on the rescheduled date of the digital television transition,[8] using PSIP to display WEDU's virtual channel as 3 on digital television receivers.

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

References

  1. ↑ WEDU history section from 2002 archive of Website
  2. ↑ "WEDU.org". Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting, Inc. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  3. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WEDU
  4. ↑ http://www.wedu.org/channels/
  5. ↑ http://www.wedu.org/channels/
  6. ↑ Congress delays digital TV switch, but WEDU will switch this month, Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times, February 5, 2009
  7. ↑ List of Digital Full-Power Stations
  8. ↑ WEDU FCC DTV status report

External links