TV Transmitters lost in WTC attack
DataTimes: Newsday, 10/03/01
The multimillion-dollar efforts of New York's television broadcasters
to send superior-quality digital signals to a growing community of
video enthusiasts crumbled along with the transmission tower atop the
World Trade Center.
Five local stations - WNBC, WABC, WWOR, WPIX and WNET - lost their
antenna arrays and transmitters in the terrorist attacks on the Twin
Towers. Six broadcast engineers who were working on routine
monitoring on the high floors of the WTC's North Tower on the morning
of Sept. 11 are among the thousands of victims still missing.
While most conventional analog over-the-air broadcasting has resumed
for the millions of metro-area viewers who still use terrestrial
antennas, restoring the higher-quality digital broadcasts is not a
high priority.
"I can tell you right now that WNBC is not yet broadcasting in
digital and I don't know when we will be," said Anna Caronell, a
spokeswoman for the station. "It took quite a few months and quite a
few million dollars to get it going," she said about the WTC
facility, which began sending out WNBC's digital signals in May.
"It'll be quite a while before we get to it."
The five transmitters on the upper floors of the North Tower, each of
which costs as much as a half-million dollars, were built by the
Harris Corporation. Dave Glidden of the broadcast division of
Illinois-based Harris said that after the attacks, the company rushed
five replacement systems to an alternate facility in Alpine, N.J.,
along with installers and technicians who drove to New Jersey from
Texas and Louisiana. The replacement systems currently broadcast only
analog signals.
WNBC is one of four outlets using the Armstrong Tower in Alpine,
which is 18 miles north of the WTC site. WCBS, while maintaining a
backup transmitter on the WTC, sends out both its analog and digital
signals from atop the Empire State Building. Fox's WNYW and UPN
affiliate WWOR-TV are also broadcasting low-power signals from the
Empire State.
The Alpine tower has the capacity to accommodate digital transmitters
as well, said Gary Merson, who publishes an Internet newsletter on
digital television at hdtvinsider.com. "There's been talk about
relocating to the Chrysler or Empire State buildings, but that would
take one to three years," Merson said. "For that reason, I think the
stations have no choice and will go with digital on the Armstrong
tower."
The transition to high-quality digital TV, mandated by the Federal
Communications Commission to be substantially complete by 2006, has
been a sluggish and often laborious process. Questions about
broadcast standards hobbled marketing efforts, digital receivers and
monitors were far too expensive initially to attract a mass market,
and the networks provided too little content to make the investments
worthwhile.
Although digital and high-definition TV is still far from ubiquitous
in the United States (there are slightly more than 200 stations
broadcasting it now) there are signs it is growing in popularity. The
CBS network has been regularly offering prime-time shows in the
wide-screen, HD format, and ABC executives have announced their
intention to offer more HD programming this fall.
With prices of digital sets dropping consistently in the past year,
the Consumer Electronics Association reported last month that sales
of digital television gear amounted to revenue of $222 million in
July. The number represented a 39 percent increase over June revenue.
"This is really the first fall with a lot to choose from in prime-
time digital content," Glidden said. "With the cost of receivers
declining, there's lot of interest in seeing that DTV is restored in
a timely way."
Meanwhile, Glidden reminds all antenna users in the metro area to
re-aim their rooftop devices toward northern New Jersey, and away
from lower Manhattan. |
