Some viewers cannot see News Channel 7 right now. The station's transmitter tower on Hogback Mountain collapsed about 2:30 Sunday during the snow storm. That knocked out the signal for viewers with TV's that use antennas. But thanks to the DTV transition, those viewers can still see News Channel 7 on another channel.
"An accumulation of two inches of ice, winds speeds gusting at 60 miles an hour, pretty much caused our tower to collapse," explained WSPA engineer Charlie Wofford. "It was quite a thing to see our antenna laid out in the woods."
Station engineers went up the mountain to survey the damage. The snow storm stretched their return trip down the mountain from an hour to five long hours.
Most viewers with cable or satellite did not lose News Channel 7. But TV's that need antennas did, when viewers needed to see the latest weather forecast.
Said one viewer, Chris Bailey, who lost the signal, "Try to catch the news and everything about the weather and everything died on us."
But don't worry. That converter box you bought for the DTV transition means you can still get News Channel 7 on our sister station WYCW's digital channel 62.2. Make sure the box is hooked up properly. Then using your remote, hit 'menu,' 'set up,' and 'auto tuning.' The box will start scanning for all available channels.
Once you've scanned all the channels, then you can either use the remote or manually turn the channel up on the box until you get to 62.2 and you'll be able to see News Channel 7.
So when will the tower be fixed? Said Wofford, "We have structural enginners up there to determine if we can mount a temporary antenna on what is still standing."
A temporary antenna has been ordered and engineers say they expect to restore the signal sometime within a week to several weeks.
You can also see live streams of our newscasts right here on wspa.com.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement