WACS-TV, part of the GPB

Georgia Public Broadcasting

Georgia Public Broadcasting is the public broadcasting radio and television state network in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is operated by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission....

 network, is Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

's ninth public television station, and primarily serves the southern part of the Columbus

Columbus, Georgia

Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...

 market, including Dawson and Americus

Americus, Georgia

-Early years:Americus, Georgia was named and chartered by Sen. Lovett B. Smith in 1832.For its first two decades, Americus was a small courthouse town. The arrival of the railroad in 1854 and, three decades later, local attorney Samuel H. Hawkins' construction of the only privately financed...

. WACS' transmitter is located north of Parrott, Georgia

Parrott, Georgia

Parrott is a town in Terrell County, Georgia, United States. The population was 156 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Albany, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...

. The station's signal travels in about a 40-mile (64-km) radius from the transmitter site and also reaches parts of southeastern Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

.

It also serves Albany, Georgia

Albany, Georgia

Albany is a city in and the county seat of Dougherty County, Georgia, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. It is the principal city of the Albany, Georgia metropolitan area and the southwest part of the state. The population was 77,434 at the 2010 U.S. Census, making it the...

, though that city's GPB station of record is Pelham

Pelham, Georgia

Pelham is a city in Mitchell County, Georgia, United States. The population was 4,126 at the 2000 census. It was named for famed American Civil War officer John Pelham.-Geography:Pelham is located at ....

's WABW-TV

WABW-TV

WABW-TV digital channel 6 part of the Georgia Public Broadcasting public broadcasting network, serves Albany and southwestern Georgia, from its transmitter in Pelham...

, channel 14. Viewers in Columbus are well within the WACS coverage area, even though their GPB station of record is WJSP-TV

WJSP-TV

WJSP-TV 23 , part of the Georgia Public Broadcasting Public Broadcasting Service member Public broadcasting network, serves Columbus, Georgia and the surrounding west-central Georgia and far east-central Alabama region. The transmitter and radio antenna are located just south of Warm Springs on...

, whose fringes just barely reach Columbus itself. All are satellites of Athens

Athens, Georgia

Athens-Clarke County is a consolidated city–county in U.S. state of Georgia, in the northeastern part of the state, comprising the former City of Athens proper and Clarke County. The University of Georgia is located in this college town and is responsible for the initial growth of the city...

/Atlanta's WGTV, the network's flagship station

Flagship station

In broadcasting, a flagship is the broadcast which originates a television network, or a particular radio show or TV show, primarily in the United States and Canada. This includes both direct network feeds and broadcast syndication, but generally not backhauls...

. They simulcast

Simulcast

Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...

 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.

Tower destruction

In March 2007, the station's broadcast tower was destroyed by one of several tornado

Tornado

A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

es which struck the region during a major outbreak

February-March 2007 Tornado Outbreak

The February–March 2007 Tornado Outbreak was a tornado outbreak across the southern United States that began in Kansas on February 28, 2007. The severe weather spread eastward on March 1 and left a deadly mark across the southern US, particularly in Alabama and Georgia. Twenty deaths were...

 on March 1. The same tornado, rated an EF3

Enhanced Fujita Scale

The Enhanced Fujita Scale rates the strength of tornadoes in the United States based on the damage they cause.Implemented in place of the Fujita scale introduced in 1971 by Ted Fujita, it began operational use on February 1, 2007. The scale has the same basic design as the original Fujita scale:...

, went on to cause serious destruction in Americus. http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=6169428 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

Transmitter

In electronics and telecommunications a transmitter or radio transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the antenna. When excited by this alternating...

 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

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

), GPB engineers borrowed the transmitter from W22AC

WCES-TV

WCES-TV channel 20 is a non-commercial educational television station licensed to Wrens, Georgia, USA. WCES-TV is part of the Georgia Public Broadcasting public television network and carries programming from PBS, GPB and other sources...

 in Hartwell

Hartwell, Georgia

Hartwell is a city in Hart County, Georgia, United States. The population was 4,188 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Hart County.-Geography:Hartwell is located at . It sits upon the southern border of Lake Hartwell...

to get WACS back on the air before the end of February.

External links

• GPB Website
  • GPB stations map — includes WACS coverage area
• WACS TV Lineup and Demographic Data