Puerto Rico. Nearly a year after Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, most television stations remain obscure due to widespread destruction of the country's infrastructure and power grid. To help broadcasters resume broadcast services to local communities and meet accelerated repackaging deadlines, Dielectric has expedited antenna orders to Puerto Rican television stations affected by the storms.
To date, Dielectric has received 11 orders from Puerto Rican broadcasters, 10 of which are for spectrum repackaging antennas. The eleventh order will replace an antenna damaged in storms. The orders, which include top- and side-mounted primary antennas, are in various stages of manufacturing and shipping.
"While spectrum repackaging is a challenge for all U.S. broadcasters, those in our '51st state' are starting from scratch. During the intense storms, many of its TV towers collapsed, and essential infrastructure for fiber networks, microwave links and electric power was damaged," said Jay Martin, dielectric's vice president of sales.
To expedite the restoration process, the FCC amended its spectrum repackaging transition plan to reallocate television stations in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to a new pre-Phase 1 deadline of August 1, 2018.
Without this FCC action, these broadcasters would have to spend a lot of money restoring operations on their existing channels, only to have to spend more money to relocate to their new channels after repackaging a year later.
Among the repackaging orders destined for Puerto Rico are the TFU Series medium to high power side-mount UHF antennas; and the TLP series antenna of Dielectric's Powerlite UHF low-power family. The company also delivered the necessary RF filters and components to OEMs for these systems.
Martin noted that 80 percent of orders came from Dielectric's long-term customers, but the company's focus and reputation for highly durable and finely engineered antenna systems attracted new customers.
