WKRG Digital Signal Upgrade

Several viewers of WKRG News 5 may have experienced reception problems from our digital signal in the past few weeks. We are currently upgrading the antenna on our tower to better serve you. Tower crews have been at work preparing to move the digital antenna from its perch at 1605 feet on the tower to the very top. It's a 2000 foot tower. This takes some coordination. The main problem is when the crew is at the top of the tower, WKRG has to switch to broadcasting to an auxiliary tower and transmitter which have less power than our main tower and transmitter.

If you're a stickler for details, here they are. When the main tower is operating at full power, the antenna is generating 1 million watts effective radiated power. When we have to broadcast on the auxiliary tower, its only 750 feet tall and supplies 55 thousand watts of effective radiated power. That means less signal, and reception problems for some who use digital antennas, especially those living in the fringe parts of our viewing area.

The reason we have to power down from the main broadcast tower while crews are working on it is simple. It's the law. Working around all that RF could certainly make ones hair stand on end and we like to make sure our tower crews are as safe as they can possibly be.

The good news is that the upgrade should be completed by mid December when you can look forward to a stronger and clearer digital signal from WKRG.