WBAY, WPNE stay off air as transmitter site issues linger into the weekend

No Signal
After being off the air for nearly six hours today, WBAY is reporting their signal and that of WPNE (Wisconsin Public Television) cannot be restored this afternoon as hoped.  Both broadcasters, which share a tower on Scray's Hill near Green Bay, had gone off the air beginning at 9 AM to diagnose transmitter problems that started to impact their signals last night.  The problem was believed by station officials to be electrical in nature.

The earliest they now expect to be back on air in a limited low-power capacity is Saturday evening.  No further details on the exact nature of the problem or how long it will be before full service is restored.

The outage does not impact WBAY programming on DISH Network or AT&T U-Verse, as both are directly fed by the station.  Time Warner Cable is expected to continue analog service on channel 3, but high-definition service on channel 1003 may still be impacted.  DirecTV customers and some other area cable customers may be affected by the outage.

It is not known how the transmitter site problems are affecting availability of Wisconsin Public Television on the various pay TV services.

More from WBAY.com just now:

WBAY-TV is experiencing problems with its transmission signal. To troubleshoot these problems, WBAY went off the air at 9 o'clock Friday morning.

The transmission signal will not be restored Friday. We hope to have it restored at a reduced strength by Saturday evening.

Until that time, viewers who receive our signal over the air, some cable subscribers, and DirecTV subscribers will be unable to view WBAY-TV, Retro TV, StormCenter 2 24/7, and Wisconsin Public Television because Wisconsin Public Television's transmission signal is located on the WBAY-TV tower.

It does not affect customers of Time Warner Cable, Dish Network, and AT&T U-verse.

We apologize for any inconvenience they may cause our viewers and viewers of Wisconsin Public Television.

Status reports on fixing the problem will be posted here on WBAY.com.

Written by Mark | Posted on January 29, 2010 | 1 comment
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forst's picture

They are back today, 1-31-10

Submitted by forst on January 31, 2010.

They are back today, 1-31-10 and I think also yesterday, 1-30-10.

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