TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — WTXL engineers and outside contractors are still working to resolve a signal outage that is impacting the digital subchannels of Bounce, Grit, Court TV and Court TV Mystery for some viewers.
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As of Sunday, Jan. 10, ABC 27 engineers continue to work to replace damaged equipment and with drying the residual moisture from the microwave lines that were full of water at the station’s transmitter site.
Unfortunately, this process is being slowed down by colder weather conditions. A specialist team will return to the tower site on Tuesday, Jan. 12 to evaluate the progress.
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A team of specialists working with the ABC 27 engineering team, successfully repaired most of the damage at the ABC 27 studio site on January 7.
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Due to weather conditions, our team was not able to address the issues at our transmitter site on Thursday.
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On Friday, ABC 27 engineers and a specialist team returned to the station’s transmitter site. During that time, water was found and drained from the transmitter site microwave waveguides.
The team will return back to the transmitter site to continue work on Saturday morning.
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Viewers who rely on an antenna to receive WTXL’s digital subchannels have been unable to receive them since Christmas Eve, when a severe storm damaged the station’s STL tower. The primary signal for ABC 27 was restored for those viewers a few days later, but engineers have been unable to fully restore the subchannels.
During the Christmas Eve storm, high winds broke a strut that secured a microwave dish atop the station’s STL tower. WTXL hired two separate tower crews to climb the tower, first to assess the damage and then to repair it.
While the strut was repaired, engineers are still working to diagnose the remaining issue that is preventing the station’s studio from connecting with the transmission tower in southern Georgia.
“We appreciate the patience and understanding from our viewers loyal to Bounce, Grit and the Court TV channels,” said WTXL General Manager Matt Brown. “While we continue working to diagnose the problems created by the storm, we’re also working on an alternative method for viewers to be able to receive our digital subchannels.”
